Human-like robots infused with the transformative power of artificial intelligence: It’s a sci-fi staple that is now within the realm of possible—but just because we can do it doesn’t mean we should. What does it mean for humans to want to create artificial life that’s modeled after both our bodies and our minds? The endeavor already and naturally extends to commerce and industry: Humanoid robots could bring substantial economic benefits by fitting into existing human roles and spaces without requiring an overhaul of infrastructure. But the idea goes further back than the 1984 blockbuster film Terminator—much further back. “There’s a long history of robots that goes all the way back to the Egyptians—it’s always trying to create lifelike creatures,” UC Berkeley Industrial Engineering Professor Ken Goldberg told Decrypt. “We’ve had a fascination with these for millennia. You could say that all of art is, in some way, trying to create representations of life.” As Goldberg explained, this fascination with creating a humanoid robot was first documented in the 24th century BCE in the myth of Osiris, who was put back together and resurrected by Isis after being dismembered by Set. The lineage continues forward through ancient stories like Pygmalion in Ancient Greece, the Golem in 16th-century Europe, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1818.
Full report : AI-Powered Humanoid Robots Are Coming—If We Insist On Building Them.
Is your head still spinning from all the AI news of late? It will all seem so quaint when the useful humanoid robots arrive. See: Rise of the Robots: Breakthroughs in Humanoid Robotics and the Dawn of Embodied AI
