What is my deal with robots?!

Any regular watcher of my TV show will know that on pretty much any story about robots, I regularly joke about these rather benign advancements in technology will ultimately lead us down the path to being mechanically dominated.  Battlestar Galactica here we come.

Take some recent stories we have done.  Like the one where in Japan they now have robots that mimic human facial features, and look like people.  Though there is none or very little artificial human intelligence with this model you don’t have to look far to find it.  Consider XBOX360 games like Call of Duty: World at War.  The computer will operate hundreds or thousands of soliders, they use available cover and will come and find you.  They shoot better than you do, and they don’t get tired.  Hook the first pretty looking girl robot to the XBOX and you are not far from needing Will Smith to beat back the crazed robot hoards.

No, I am not REALLY fearful of this.  Or am I?

There is a big international conference in Kobe, Japan coming up in May.  I was glancing through the topics for this and noticed ‘Human Friendly Robotics‘.  Made me go, hmm.  But, no, not the end of the world.  Then I wondered when I would be replaced by a robot at work, certainly not.  But wait, check this out, robots may replace scientists.  But they would not be able to attack us certainly.  It is just a Sci-Fi channel hoax that military grade robots are right around the corner, well no it isnt.  Apparently 12-thousand are working in the Middle East right now.

The idea of robots doing things we don’t want to do, or is too tough for us to do is here.  The reality is outrunning the ethical debate on it.  One recent story estimates that by the year 2029 artificial intelligence will outpace human intelligence, most scoff at this date but few doubt the gap is narrowing.  That same story suggested that it is likely most people will admit computers are smarter than them very soon.  As a person who works with computer modeling everyday to predict the weather, I can appreciate the accuracy of that statement.  Computers are definitely more than big calculators.

Sure, we show the slow-silly robots on the news clumsily navigating stairs or giving you a doll-eyed look.  I make my silly comments and off to the forecast we go but there is a real issue in there somewhere.

Thankfully computers have not taken over, we can rest easy.  Now all I have to do is post this, update my Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, check my e-mail, text a few people and update the web forecast…all things that literally did not exist when I was in high school.