Robot Technology

Todays old school mechanical robot reminds me of old books I used to read, produced in the 1970’s about ‘the future’ – usually referring to the year 2000. Fascinating books, not entirely incorrect in some areas, and very very wrong in others regarding their predictions of the future.

Robots have featured in books and film for a long time now. Initially often seen as either scary beasts, or there to help humanity as servants (or a mix of the two). Ever so slowly we have seen them depicted as human copies, coming to grips with trying to be human & struggling with the concept of emotion and soul.

Aside from the paperback and silver screen, technology and science, perhaps replicating these ideas (as often seems to be the case with technology) has come in leaps and bounds in humanoid robot/android experiments. I read an interesting article recently about robots being used in rest homes to help residents. I guess its only time until we have them looking after children, and are already part way to people having them as their companion. Im sure this will scare many, and excite others. The technology side of me is fascinated. How it might fit into my studied field of anthropology one day is also fascinating. Part of me also wonders if movies like Terminator or The Matrix might have an eventual grain of truth…

Todays image (a very safe and traditional robot) was shot some time ago on the Canon Powershot G12, edited in Gimp.