Reality lags behind imagination by 100 years?
In recent years, whether it is the superhero Iron Man and Vision created by Marvel, or Tars in Interstellar, which is a highly intelligent robot, or the recently launched new season of Westworld, it has attracted the attention of audiences around the world with its grand scenes and exquisitely designed robot world. In the world of imagination, humans have already created ideal robots, which are perfect in appearance and practicality.
In reality, the design and manufacture of robots is still at the stage of conquering materials, batteries, machinery and core technologies. Therefore, the most cutting-edge robot design and manufacturing companies, including Boston Dynamics and Google X projects, always bring us a lot of surprises and shocks with their small releases. The robot security guard designed by the former Google engineering team that we are about to talk about has given us a glimmer of hope that robots can replace human work.
Today’s robots are not particularly cool.
Speaking of a recent news about robots, it seems that we can see the possibility that robots will gradually replace human labor.
A startup called Cobalt Robotics produces patrol security robots, also known as "robot security guards," for commercial buildings such as offices, data centers, and hospitals. Such robots can help companies save money on human security. According to a survey, in 2016, major companies spent nearly $68 billion on physical security alerts; it is expected to exceed $125 billion by 2022, with a large amount of spending going to indoor security.
Travis Deyle, CEO of Cobalt Robotics, founded the company in 2016 after working on a smart contact lens project at Google X, Google's research lab.
The company's CTO Erik Schluntz is also an engineer who turned down a job at Space X to start a business with Deyle. Cobalt's current robots can do the following:Scan employee or visitor badges, detect open doors, leaks, spills or intrusions. Or, if something unusual happens in a building, alert security experts who can then send guards on patrol as needed.
Investors believe that Cobalt robots have empathy, unlike broadcast surveillance systems that only use microphones and cameras to record people's every move. In addition, after horrific mass shootings and other incidents, operators of commercial buildings are under increasing pressure to provide security, and operators will not always be able to afford enough full-time security. Cobalt security robots can help large employers and facilities fill the gap, so this is a good opportunity.
Humanity's obsession with robots for many years
In fact, as early as 1927, nearly 100 years ago, humans began to imagine a future life coexisting with robots. In that year, Germany released the first verifiable movie with the concept of robots, "Metropolis", which is set in a dystopian future city in 2000. The protagonist is a female robot given life by a mad scientist. In the story, human society in 2000 was divided into two classes, and these two types of people lived in two completely different worlds - the powerful and the rich lived in dreamy and magnificent buildings, leading a life of enjoyment every day; while the poor working class was trapped in a dark underground city for a long time, accompanied by cold machines, and led a hard life.
Doesn’t it sound a lot like “Folding Beijing”? As the first verifiable robot-themed movie in human history, the appearance of the heroine’s robot in the story also inspired C3PO in the “Star Wars” series. Even the world’s first industrial robot was produced in 1959, more than 30 years after the movie was released.
So now it seems that this movie is still very forward-looking and grand in scope.
In addition to movies, science fiction has also created many classic robot images. The most famous is the "Three Laws of Robotics" proposed in Asimov's "I, Robot" series:
– Article 1: A robot may not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to be harmed.
– Article 2: A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would violate Article 1;
– Article 3: A robot must protect itself as long as this does not conflict with Articles 1 and 2.
Compared with the plot of the movie, it seems that the development stage of robots in reality is still in the Stone Age, but the emergence of Asimov's Iron Law of Robots has raised more profound questions about the relationship between humans and robots. So many movies have begun to discuss the robot doomsday on Earth. The directors and screenwriters have a strong desire to survive in times of peace.
However, from now on, whether it is the continuous exploration of mechanical intelligence in reality, or the fantasy and real human-machine battle in "Westworld", the current robot industry still has a very long, ...