Robots that act passably human are imminent. Sad to say that, as with the Internet, many people’s first response to this revolutionary new technology will be: ‘I could shag that.’
Out there, right now, some early adopters are already at it. One US company run by former construction worker Scott Maclean has been producing naughty robots – or rather, slightly mechanised sex-dolls – since 2004.
Maclean has satisfied customers’ requests for custom-made look-alikes of Angelina Jolie and Pamela Anderson. Another request was less predictable: one woman wanted her robot to look like Eurovision host Graham Norton.
So yes. The human race has produced its first Graham Norton robot sex-dolls. In our lifetimes. We should be, well … not proud exactly. But we should probably feel something.
The sex robots are coming. And so are the war robots. Lots of other useful robots are already here, doing the hoovering and cleaning the sewers. So are we on the verge of a time where finally – finally, after all the false robot dawns – robots start doing loads of our shitty jobs for us? And loads of our tricky jobs, like surgery? And all the other jobs?
In Asia, where attitudes to robots are ones of great enthusiasm, they are already making inroads into loads of areas of society. But will the robots get ideas above their stations and wipe out the illogical old humans in a big fuck-off robot takeover scenario?
The word ‘robot’ was coined by the Czech writer Karel Cˇapek – from robota meaning serf labour – for a cautionary 1920 play called R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). The title refers to a fictional factory which pumps out artificial humanoids who initially work for mankind without complaint. Things take a turn for the worse when they rise up and wipe out all humanity. So it’s been a motif from the start.
But who or what will be in at the finish? Robots? I expect so.
The robots are not coming! The robots are not coming! The robots are already here
Different parts of the world have very varied attitudes to robotics. Asian societies generally believe that the more robots advance, the better this is for humans. Western societies generally believe the more robots advance, the more likely they are to rise up and kill us all in our beds, dashing out our brains as we sleep. Aaaaaargh! This is a fundamental difference of opinion as regards robots.
Japan and South Korea are engaged in a race to be the most robotic (with China coming up on the rails). South Korea is currently constructing a theme park called Robot Land. That’s a theme park for people to see robots, not a place for robots to relax.
The theme of Robot Land is robots. Very much so. An hour outside Seoul, Robot Land promises attractions like an aquarium full of robot fish, movie sets from Minority Report and I, Robot, a giant robot arm that flings you around, Vegas-style robot shows and even ‘boxer-bot’ fight nights (hopefully complete with the press conference brawl with mike stands). There is even a water park, which seems a bit off; you wouldn’t have thought robots would even like water, what with being electric.
South Korea also has robot guards patrolling prison perimeters; robot screws on wheels, with smiles etched onto their ‘faces’ supposedly making them more ‘humane and friendly’, but actually just making them look freakier than that by far.
Throughout Korean society, a mechanical underclass is taking over many of the dirty jobs like being a soldier or a waiter, or a teacher. By 2013, every class in the land is promised a three-foot tall robot teaching assistant who bowls around the classroom on wheels, speaking in English and dancing to music. Teachers dancing: that’s a bit embarrassing (although it would probably be quite good at robotic dancing). And what sort of kids will they end up with, reared by robots? (Pro-robot ones if the robots have got anything to do with it.) (Which they have.)
Japan, meanwhile, has a robot factory entirely staffed by robots. The FANUC Robotics factory can operate for 53 days without human intervention, pumping out more robots without the need for meals or heat or ventilation or lines of speed or anything. Robots making robots, for weeks at a time, without pause: is this wise? It doesn’t sound wise.
Then there is the ‘guard dragon’ robot for the home; a four-legged robot that can sense smoke and alert its owners to a smouldering fire via a howl or a text message. Yes, a dog can howl, but can a dog text?
There are also the robot chefs that can make a range of meals from a set menu, the robot avatars that cover for you in the office3 and Toyota’s robot that plays the violin – often considered the most emotive of all the instruments (although not the way this guy plays it). Other robots have mastered trumpets and trombones, so watch out for the full robot orchestra. If the robots do take over, a strident classical overture – some Wagner, say – is exactly the sort of dramatic flourish they’d be into.
Japan is also leading the way in empathetic robots – which does sound like a contradiction in terms, and possibly is. But that does not bother the Japanese. There is a robotic bear that cures snoring, an emotional robot pillow and cuddly robot companions providing comfort and solace for the elderly. One cute robotic seal called Paro was even selected by Guinness World Records as the world’s most soothing robot. How could they even claim to be objective about this? Surely one person’s soothing robot is not the same as another’s, moving the whole thing into dangerously subjective waters.
Japan’s elderly can also get about aided by battery-powered robotic pants. These are designed to help people with mobility problems move without the need for human assistance, picking up traces of the brain’s signals to nerves on the skin, and helping move the limbs accordingly. Battery-powered robot pants: is that wise? It doesn’t sound wise. (Have they not seen The Wrong Trousers?)
The Japanese persist in incubating the robots even after one humanoid security robot, following an alleged ‘malfunction’, attacked Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, taking a swing and firing smoke at him during a factory visit. Most people would take this as a sign, but, in fact, they just keep making the robots bigger and more powerful. So do the Koreans. Indeed, these two pre-eminent robot nations are in competition to make the biggest giant robot of them all, feverishly trying to churn out yet bigger and bigger and more powerful bots.
First Japan built a 59 – foot-high giant robot – a life-size replica of the anime legend Gundam – in the city of Odaiba, with another equivalent one being constructed in Kobe.
But these will both be dwarfed by South Korea’s plans for a 364-foot-tall Taekwon V to tower over the Robot Land theme park. Stick that, Japan – get a load of our robot!
Is Japan likely to let their ancient rivals reign victorious in the giantest giant robot race? No. They will continue making ever more gargantuan robots until they black out the very sky and bring fear and terror to the quivering peoples below.
All fine stuff, except this does rather resemble a sci-fi parable which ends with the giant robots coming to life and going on an epic trampling rampage until both nations are unfortunately reduced to tear-stained dust – thus providing a salutary lesson for all mankind about the inadvisability of conjuring up really, really big robots.
This may not happen. Let’s hope it doesn’t. But they are kind of asking for it by building all these giant robots. The idiots.
Robots in the house
Clearly robots have not happened as envisaged in the futuristic fantasies of yore. Here in the West, we do not appear to be surrounded by domestic robot slaves and are not joined in the workplace by spooky near-human androids. There have been delays. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – the novel which became Blade Runner – was originally set in 1992. As you may recall, 1992 was the year of the Maastricht Treaty and Brian May’s solo single ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’. But not near-human replicant