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household robots latest - leading to utopia or Orwellian nightmare [Turing/Hawking/Musk]

Marianne72

There is a clumsy fascination about the latest household bots, Eggie, Neo, Isaac and Memo. Manufacturers claim 20 years will bring autonomous functioning [rather than 'direction' by humans]. Considering the Backshall/Strachan docu 'Ice Age; Apocolypse', is a future like the one in Silent Running inevitable/desirable/unthinkable? Do you want a mouthless meca washing your smalls, making your marmite sandwich, loading the dishwasher? Is this good use of technology in an age which has not eradicated want/isolation/poverty/war.

Parents

  • Would I trust a robot to make a proper marmite and cucumber sandwich? 

    Would it know what marmite is?

    Would it have been programed by one of these people who dab bits of marmite from the end of a knife at the bread and you can barely taste anything?

    Could it make a proper cup of builders tea?

    Surely they'd have to be programed for the culture they were going to be sold? 

    Talking of Culture, couldn't we have the hovering suitcases of Iain M Banks, Culture series?

  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    You could just tell it what you want. It will know how to make every sandwich, you just need to tell it. Or it could watch you and learn.

    I think you underestimate the processing power even simple things have now. A smartphone has hugely more processing power than a multimillion pound supercomputer from the early 90's.

    The challenge is less in knowing what to do, but in actually doing it. The act of taking two slices out of the bread packet, buttering then without tearing the bread, opening the jar and scooping out the marmite in the correct quantity, the spreading it properly, is quite tough.

    The process, images, knowledge is easy. It is the doing with sufficient dexterity that is hard. A sandwich is probably one of the toughest tasks.

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  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    You could just tell it what you want. It will know how to make every sandwich, you just need to tell it. Or it could watch you and learn.

    I think you underestimate the processing power even simple things have now. A smartphone has hugely more processing power than a multimillion pound supercomputer from the early 90's.

    The challenge is less in knowing what to do, but in actually doing it. The act of taking two slices out of the bread packet, buttering then without tearing the bread, opening the jar and scooping out the marmite in the correct quantity, the spreading it properly, is quite tough.

    The process, images, knowledge is easy. It is the doing with sufficient dexterity that is hard. A sandwich is probably one of the toughest tasks.

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