David Mikaelian Enlgish 120 10.16.

2013

Robotics For Dummies

When the movie Terminator 2 came out, it had astonished audiences all around the globe due to the greatly advanced androids that Skynet, the fictional company in the movie, had produced. Now, twenty-two years later and one too many new gadgets produced, humans are not far from achieving what director James Cameron was able to put on the big screen. Action movies show robots as automated killing machines but in modern day society, humans would not be able to achieve everything they have without the help of robots. With technology advancing at the extremely high rate that it is, the need for more and more robotics is also increasing. Will humans be able to control this advancement of technology or will they become too dependent on the usefulness of them? If one asks an average American of what comes to mind when they think of a robot, they will most likely give you names such as Megatron or Bender. The expectations on the new generation of humans all depend on what they see in the movies or what they watch on television. The popular movie iRobot has an automobile functioning without a human driver. A driverless car seems like something one would find in a sci-fi novel, being completely fictional, but as the idea of the future comes more and more into ones mind, the realization that having a car function without a driver is somewhat in the norm. Professor Raj Rajkumar of Carnegie Melon University claims that over 93% of accidents are caused by human error. With autonomous vehicles, one would not have to worry about traffic accidents because robots are programmed to be perfect. But of course, there are many fears when it comes to the advancement of robots. The fears of a robot going haywire and enslaving humanity will always be in the back of ones minds. Movies such as Transformers have etched this image of massive robots attacking humanity. This is why humans, of this generation at least, will never be able to

David Mikaelian Enlgish 120 10.16.2013 Robotics For Dummies 2 trust things such as driving or policing to robots. Scientists at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have created cubes that can self assemble into whatever shape they need to be to complete a specific task. This cannot help but remind one of the self-assembling robots in Terminator 2, which ultimately were a disaster. The m-blocks are not as advanced as the liquid metal one sees in. All in all, compared to how things were before, robotics has changed tremendously, making humans more dependent on it. Humans are so lost in the midst of having all the robots that are in their lives, they sometimes forget what it would be like a couple centuries ago. Doing laundry back in the 1800s would most certainly not be a simple throwing a bunch of clothes in that big white machine, adding a bit of Tide detergent, and pressing the start button. Another aspect that has dramatically changed ever since the 19th century is the means of transportations. Walking to get from one place to another has become a thing of the past. The metropolitan regions of cities in America are bombarded with automobiles. Without even realizing it, humans are constantly calling upon the aid of robots, whether it be washing their clothes or driving their car. Robots are not only used for convenient and entertaining purposes, but they can also be used to save lives. We have all heard of bomb disarming robots, but what if a robot could jump into a leveled building, remove rubble from its way, and save trapped humans from a building. That is what the Pentagon hopes to achieve with their latest robot, ATLAS, which is a humanoid robot that can walk on rubble while keeping its balance. It can also walk into environments where humans would not be able to survive, making it useful for scientists when discovering new places of land. Gary Bradski, a specialist in artificial intelligence claims that a new species, Robo sapiens, are emerging. ATLAS is the future when it comes to keeping the world safe. The sky is limit with robotics. Imagine a world where every human had his or her own robot. Imagine a world where

David Mikaelian Enlgish 120 10.16.2013 Robotics For Dummies 3 one does not even have to leave the privacy of their own home to go to work, their robot will go to work for them. From lawyers and judges to police officers and firefights, they are all eventually going to be replaced by robots. It is scary to think how inefficient the human population are compared these androids. There has been a constant fear among the human population that the day in which the processing power of robots will surpass that of the average brain. IBM showed the world that this feat is very possible by creating Watson, which is an artificially intelligent computer capable of answering any question given to it in plain language. This super computer was able to win a game of Jeopardy against former champions Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. Ken Jennings said that he welcomes [the] new computer overlords. Watson is the first indication of artificial intelligence surpassing the intelligence of the average human. There are also many negative effects to robotics, one being that they cost an excessive amount of money to make. Creating an advanced humanoid like the ATLAS costs around the same as a small aircraft. Also all robots have a very limited range of motion and cannot complete all of the tasks that they have been made to do. But even though robotics has many disadvantages, the entire aspect of it is the future. Whether it is a couple hundred years from ago or modern day, robotics has completely changed the way humans live and think. Technology has brainwashed the human population of the 21st century with its huge outbreak. There is no telling what new devices and contraptions are going to be invented.

David Mikaelian Enlgish 120 10.16.2013

Robotics For Dummies