Robots believe it or not do have origins from Ptolemaic Egypt China and ancient Greece. Ancient mythologies include artificial people, Hephaestus the Greek god had mechanical servants and the clay giants of Norse legend. In the 3rd century text of ancient china Lie Zi describes humanoid automata. In 4th century BC the greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum suggested a steam operated bird he called The Pigeon. Even Leonardo Da Vinci envisioned plans for a humanoid robot around 1495 and in 1066 the Chinese inventor Su Song constructed a water clock in the shape of a tower which featured mechanical figurines which chimed the hours. Not as advanced as todays standard but netherless a start a vision of things to come.
Su Sing's diagram of a water clock
The Steam Bird thought up by the Greek God Archytas Of Tarentum - The Pigeon -
Leonardo Da Vinci's Robot 1495
So robots have been in the mind of people from a very long time ago, Robots are used worldwide today to provide us with a service to fix and paint and cook. Artificial intelligence is paving the way for true next generation robots that look and act no different than there human counterparts. One day robots will do most of our work and we can sit back and relax. Lets look further into how we use robots.
Factories and industry use robots today to carry out simple chores which saves a human from having to do the same task. These type of robots are simply referred to as Industrial robots. Car manufacturers use them to spray paint cars and factories to prepare and box food stuffs. Printed circuit boards use robots for soldering tasks and some robots put labels on jars and packets.
The earliest known industrial robot conforming to the ISO definition was completed by Bill Griffith P Taylor in 1937. Unimation developed the very first industrial robot by American inventor George Devol.
6 different types of industrial robot have been developed these consist of Articulated, Cartesian, Cylindrical, Polar, SCARA, Delta.
Robots are used in Military Space Exploration Transportation and medical applications.
NASA'S Mars Exploration Rover
The advances in modern surgery allow robots to operate on a patient
NASA plan to one day setup a Mars base and send people there to live full time. While there they will carry out experiments and learn new things. The most important of these is to stay alive as it is a very dangerous environment with sand storms and unpredictability. With no help from earth the first settlers will be going it alone.
Facts about Mars, Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and second smallest planet in the solar system, Mars has a lot of iron oxide on its surface which gives it its deep red colour, Mars also has the title of having the largest volcano called Olympus Mons and second highest mountain known in our solar system. With a good telescope Mars can easily been seen at an average distance of 225 million km from earth up to 401 million km as it moves around the sun.
Robots are not just used for space exploration and industry but also for entertainment, The movie industry has used robots from very early on when the film serial noir The Master Mystery made in 1919 consisting of 15 instalments had its first appearance of a robot, No one was familiar with the word robot until Josef Capek invented it in1920.His brother Karel first used it for the title of his play Rossums Universal Robots.
Harry Houdini March 24th 1874 Died October 31st 1926 was a Hungarian American illusionist and stunt performer, He also had a movie career.
Mysterious Doctor Satan 1940
Robot Monster 1953, Shot and projected in dual strip polarized 3D.
The Terrornauts 1967
C3P0 and R2D2 Star Wars 1977
The Terminator 1984 Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Robocop 1987 - Cyberpunk Science Fiction.
As technology and science have progressed we now have sythentics to consider, Robots that have a human like appearance and act and think the same, David from the movie Prometheus made in 2012 depicts an android that is completely synthetic but looks human.
In the motion picture starring Antonio Banderas robots in a future world carry out key tasks for the human race, There are so many of them manufactured they are everywhere in society from washing the dishes in your house to driving the car down the street. Protocols are built into the machines and cant be altered. One rogue robot sets itself on fire and this is the start of a story where a handful of robots want to think for themselves and do not want to be controlled by humans anymore.
Robots are advanced at present and are becoming more and more like humans in everyway .But do they have emotions. A robot is simply working on a set of algorithms software and we can continuously add and improve that data. Machine learning is algorithms that enable a robot to learn and simulate human like responses.Feature learning will teach a robot contours shapes patterns colours and it can make a choice maybe from millions of pictures. Voice has tone pitch and length and can be changed with a software update to speak the language of choice.
Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky were the founders and leaders of AI research,
Q the Robot first used in Harry Houdini's serial The Master Mystery
Robots are here to stay and provide a service to us, The technology can help people who have lost arms and legs with the use of bionics that senses the persons brain responses and acts accordingly
One day in the very far future maybe a robot will campaign to become president of America, Will it be a crime to damage break electrical goods or even go to prison for hitting a robot.
A bionic prosthetic leg
Transhuman is an intermediary form between human and posthuman. Imagine having super powers like Spider-Man or Superman being able to see through walls or living forever, These are some of the traits transhumanists are working towards, They feel we as humans are only at an early stage in development and we must progress into the futuristic next level. Like Robocop half man half machine, But are we going to far is this even ethically right when is it time to think and stop how far will technology go before it starts to create more problems than it solves.
Because of the advancements in technology we also now have sex robots or companion robots. These robots are designed and programmed to provide a human type of love kindness and acceptance. They never complain or say no, People purchase these robots for company and for relations, This might sound wrong but there is a demand for this type of thing, A customer can now choose the face the body and the mannerisms of there decided robot and then dress them up accordingly. Some people will say this is wrong and this could be the start of something extroadinary. As in Blade Runner the replicants act and talk the same as a human counterpart but you can not tell the difference. In the future people will be having full relations with robots and this shows how the human race is sidelining the human relationship aspect. With over 7 billion people on earth is there really a need for this type of thing. Well there is but it's not for everyone as I am sure we would want a real person and not a rubber chip impersonator.