Robotic Nation Evidence

Humanoids for the Home

Several fascinating quotes in this article, including:

"By 2010, the ministry [of Economy, Trade, and Industry in Japan] hopes, full-fledged, humanoid robots will be common sights in middle-class homes."

And:

Help in negotiating the complex environment of a modern home, enthusiasts argue, will come from a network of tiny radio frequency identification chips. At the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, scientists are training robots to sort and wash dishes by combining visual data with RFID input. If a robot sees something round and platelike, it scans the object. The plate’s RFID chip reports, in essence, I’m a plate! I get washed and put in the corner cupboard, second shelf!

The Robotic Nation will be here before we know it...

It is fascinating to me that so many articles like this talk about "robots in the home", but never suggest, or even hint, that those same robots will be deployed in the workplace. If a robot can wash dishes, clean, monitor, etc. in the home, then obviously that same robot can work in a restaurant, hotel, prison, hospital, etc. The restructuring of the economy will be remarkable when this transition to robots occurs.