How Close Are We to Replacing Humans With Robots?

Key Takeaways

[Music] there are lots of different types of robots insect robots animal robots jellyfish robots toy robots cooking robots military robots sex robots an Android is a human-like robot it looks like a human talks like a human it acts like a human androids are the pinnacle of robotics and artificial intelligence successfully building an Android is essentially like creating synthetic life in our own image so how close are we to building an Android right now there are only a handful of robots that are anywhere close to passing themselves off as human not only do these bots look and feel weird their artificial intelligence systems aren't that intelligent but roboticists and computer engineers are working on humanoid intelligent robots all over the world why because who doesn't want a robot cook Butler or driver but making science fiction a reality is way harder than it looks even just attempting to make robots look and move like humans is hard quiet please I'm doing the talking AI has gotten very smart in specific aspects most recently in perception you have speech recognition and as well as image recognition software on your cell phones one of the pieces which AI is not still very good at is things like grasping and manipulation of physical objects things like cooking li actually requires enough fine motion skills that it will at least need 10 years you have now more sophisticated robots that can pick move around and help you more as a compliment to the human capabilities rather than a placement I'll be very glad to tell my story so robots can't physically cook you dinner and clean up afterward yet even though most of the robots you see online are more like this we're not actually that far from robotic limbs that perform basic movements in the last 10 years Bionic prosthetic arms have come a long way many models have decent grip strength and individual finger articulation but they're still controlled by people we don't fully understand how our muscles work it's a complicated system that robotic technology can help to unravel so that's where we are with movement but right now that's kind of the best we got and when it comes to the looks department we are really far away synthetic robot skin is made of things like silicone and polyurethane it still can't bounce back or feel things as you probably know it doesn't even look real realistic synthetic skin will need to be sensitive to different tactile experiences like heat and cold and no one is even close as for a humanoid robot with clever AI a robotic skeleton artificial limbs and flawless skin that could take decades or longer we'll have better sensors sensor meaning cameras smaller higher resolution faster detecting what's out there but it's not only visual it will be auditory it will be tactile fingers has 1 2 3 all in X is a heart and brain maybe we're overthinking this do we really want or need robots to be humanoid like the replicants and Blade Runner or would we be happy with them being out of sight like the disembodied voice on Star Trek if you want a household robot that sort of walks from one room to other then you are probably looking for something that looks humanoid but if on the other hand you're looking for a smart home and you know food just appears in front of you that's a smart home not a smart robot in terms of the challenges they're the same it's as to which one you prefer is really an issue what it's really all about is the task androids are great for working around the house but several companies are already proving we don't necessarily need a humanoid robot to drive a car perhaps the most important obstacle to overcome isn't physicality or looks if we really want intelligent robots to work for us we're going to need to get them to work with us to be an effective assistant you really need to be able to read that a person's mind that's the whole entire direction that's actually happening right now and in fact there is this whole saying that the reason humans have the huge brains that we have is not to run away from the tigers in the savanna but to deal with each other so what we need is to find a way not only to make robots act human but for them to fully understand and even anticipate what's on our minds and isn't that what we really mean by intelligence what is intelligence anyway how do you test it how do you know when a thing is intelligent intelligence involves things like perception things like ability to manipulate the world motion of intelligence social intelligence that process of how you deal with the never seen before never heard before never experienced before and still you somehow know how to react is something that we don't understand it'll be at least 25 years or more before we reach human level intelligence and if we do reach human level intelligence then we would have also passed unit tests Alan Turing is often referred to as the father of modern computing he said a computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing it was human but anyone who's ever chatted with a bot online knows that they are not great they don't always understand they're repetitive they don't respond in the way that a human would or they know things that no human would know off the top of their heads there was this one human being who knew so much about all the Arcana of Shakespeare that people essentially decided that it must be a machine because nobody with a real life would know so much about Shakespeare robots are coming and while they may not be in humanoid form they will be replacing the work of humans across our society blue collar white collar nobody is safe the reality is that anything routine whether it is cognitive or non cognitive is going to be replaced so for example truck driving is something that within five years it's probably going to be gone radiologists see that five years psychologists we have an app for that sports and economics reporters too late computers already do that job paralegals by so how close are we to creating androids smart AI systems already exists and we're a decade away from building robots that move like us though aesthetically we've still got some major challenges to overcome there's really no incentive to put all the pieces of the intelligent humanoid robot puzzle together at least not yet but in reality we are not building toward a future where one type of artificially intelligent robot will exist for better or for worse we're heading toward a world where a whole fleet of specialized robots will be developed each taking over its own little world how close are we to getting you to subscribe it's easy just tap this button so at the moment AI isn't great but part of that might be that AI just doesn't have its own memories so what if we gave AI the ability to remember to think back find out in this video here and thanks so much for watching seeker