Retro Tech: Robots




I’m taking a look at the tech predictions of the past that we thought would be our future – and in particular robots. I cast an eye back to the toy robots of the 60s, …

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About the Author: Marques Brownlee

39 Comments

  1. I actually like animals (most animals) to robots…just saying. ?‍♀️
    But that robot's response..it's so cool. Haha!

  2. I think that people who needs one they should get a robot and people that can't move or walk or anything should get a robot and yes it's should be the future

  3. Omnibot was the absolute JOINT when I was a kid. Even cooler than 2XL.

    I’ve thought about retrofitting the shell with a new brain and AI.

  4. Marques: "You guys are not allowed to flame me in the comments for getting this wrong.
    Me: "How about I do, anyway?~"

  5. Like I think we still havn't reached the point where we can actually make those kind of robots that we actually dream about having.
    That being a robot that has a humanlike mind of it's own.

    What I mean by that is that we need extremely clever AI capable of thinking like a human does.
    It sould be able to learn a language mostly the same way a human does, it should be able to understand a joke and think it's funny.
    It should be thinking of itself like a person.

    What it shouldn't be is a RC car with some extra features in the shape of a robot.

    We are on the way to get there, but currently the most avanced AI's runs in huge server halls and they are still not as complex as a human mind.
    However these are speciallized to be very good at certain tasks and are superior to a human in performing these tasks

    Even if we take a vastly upgraded Siri (Or something similar) and put it into a mechanical body it won't be any R2D2.
    Because it will only be capable of performing the tasks it was programmed by a human to perform.

    We need some AI that is so advanced that it will learn mostly the same way we do.
    It should be able to see us performing a task and then be able to learn how to perform that same task on it's own.

    I believe that day will come when we have some AI like that but the first will probably run on some huge server and then it might take a very very long time before something can run in a battery powered robot. It will not happen in my liftime, but please prove me wrong

  6. Robotix was an awesome toy set. Didn’t do much but looked amazing. But yeah pulling apart certain pieces was sometimes a Herculean task! Special shout to Pratt Institute, my alma mater.

  7. Correction: The first instance of having a servant to do all the things that we don't want to do is often referred to as SLAVERY, it was not Rosie the Robot, as previously mentioned. I thank You for coming to my Ted Talk.

  8. I have no idea what the size of the robot in the end really is, considering the scope of this show, you should really put some conversions in the video.

  9. 1 of the reasons I need a humanoid robot so badly is, I'm pretty sure just like me there are many ppl who wants to take care of the elder ones like keeping a strict eye on their food habits or their regular medications or exercises. But we youngsters get so busy with our work, we find it difficult to do a follow up on that daily. And I feel humanoid robots would really help in such situations!

  10. The place where I can see humanoid robots shine would be in disaster recovery scenarios – Have the legs be controlled by some form of A.I. doing the legwork ( heh¹ ), most of the time so a human operator using 360° AR Vision can focus on the arms and general task at hand ( heh² ). Like placing a robot in a storage sarcophagus that could survive a major explosion inside a nuclear plant thus still allowing access to areas for immediate inspection if the area has become inaccessible to humans. Obviously, you'd need tech specifically built for this task otherwise the radiation will make quick work of your electronics and end up like West German JOKER Bomb Defusal Robot from the Chernobyl Miniseries.

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