Podcast 14 Does the human form make sense for robots?

Randall van Poelvoorde on Tech & Robots

What I want to discuss with you today is why more and more robot builders are looking to the human form for their new designs.
Most robots we see in the world today do not look like humans at all. They actually look like nothing that is alive, maybe at most an arm. This form has made a lot of sense so far. The tasks these robots had to take over were very specific. A robot always did just one particular job. Think, for example, of tightening a screw or making a weld. To be able to perform this task, the robot was programmed very precisely. It could do that one task very well, very often, and very quickly, but it couldn't do anything else. It was not intelligent at all. Therefore, the form of an arm was fine. Sometimes it was a very small arm, like in the example of the screw, but I have also been to a Tesla factory where a robot arm as big as a room could lift an entire car and place it on a higher floor. The time when robots only looked like a big arm is coming to an end.

I invite you to listen to my podcast regularly. We will discuss fascinating technologies and inventions. We will talk about the problems and opportunities. We will ponder what the world could look like. I promise you it will be an exciting, fun, and optimistic journey. A journey full of robots, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and sustainable energy. A journey full of questions and answers. A journey full of wonder and astonishment. But also, a journey with a lot of recognition. I am going to create these episodes with great pleasure and I look forward to hearing your reactions.

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