The Robot Revolution Will Be Networked
The Terminator movie series supposes a future in which a powerful, centralized computer takes control of robots and other machines in order to wage war on the human race. Science fiction fantasty, you say? Not if the robot elite have their way.
In an article on CNET about personal robots — you know, that cute Pleo dinosaur and those wacky bots from WowWee — David Hanson of Hanson Robotics (the guy who created a creepy robot version of his son) puts forward the idea that future robots could tap into powerful artificial intelligence and emotion-mimicry by wirelessly networking with supercomputers.
For his part, Hanson envisions a fundamental shift in how the “brains” of personal robots work. Currently, most such products have everything built inside the shell, including what controls how they operate.
But thanks to advances in wireless communications technology, Hanson predicts that before too long, many personal robots will serve, effectively, as robot terminals, with all the instructions stored on servers elsewhere.
“The ubiquity of cell networks and Wi-Fi networks can mean low-cost consumer robotic characters (that) can connect to a bank of servers on the other end of the wireless network–which can have on them state-of-the-art artificial intelligence software,” he said.
Powerful, centralized supercomputers controlling robots throughout the world? Yup, sounds like Skynet to me.
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