As the impact of robotics on everyday life is about to increase visibly, visions of a robots-populated society are no longer but a dream. With a robotics industry growing at the staggering rate of about 40% each year since 2003, the South Korean government recently announced that they are drawing up a Robot Ethics Charter, a code of ethics to prevent people from abusing robots and vice versa. The Charter …

“will cover standards for robotics users and manufacturers, as well as guidelines on ethical standards to be programmed into robots, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy. Perhaps there is a need for all this as the country’s Ministry of Information and Communication is working on plans to put a robot in every South Korean household by 2020. The new charter is part of an effort to establish ground rules for human interaction with robots in the future.”

South Korea also plans to open two robot theme parks by 2013, a 1.6bn$ project.

“The parks will feature a number of attractions that let visitors interact with robots and test new products. ‘The two cities will be developed as meccas for the country’s robot industry, while having amusement park areas, exhibition halls and stadiums where robots can compete in various events,’ the ministry said.”

Forget images of the robot as an enhanced vacuum cleaner or tin-man butler, and make room for the extended family, i.e. including robots. Societal change because of humans and robots living side by side, are even more fascinating than the vast range of technological advances within the field of robotics itself.

For example, Dr. José Halloy and his colleagues at the Free University of Brussels have succeeded in having a cockroach robot adopted by a cockroach colony, being fully assimilated in cockroach society and even taking leadership (also see BBC News video).

Furthermore, researchers at the University of California San Diego found that toddlers do not differentiate between human and robot ‘friends’ in play, accepting robots as peers.

“when QRIO laid down on the floor as its batteries ran down, a toddler would put a blanket over his silver-colored ‘friend’ and say ‘night-night.’”

To artificial intelligence researcher David Levy, the signs are clear: the first human-robot marriage is upon us, i.e. in 2050.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 11:58 and is filed under business, envision, future, science, society, technology, trends, visions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.