One day, we will be having robots instead of smartphones. The life-like droids can advise you on various matters, help you buy stuffs, and even make a coffee just the way you like it. This is the forecast according to some top minds in robotics and artificial intelligence.
A lot of people want C-3PO — the intelligent droid in the Star Wars films — but if you’re expecting C-3PO today you’ll be disappointed. Consider the four-foot tall, human-shaped “Pepper” robot. Pepper can do many nifty things like recognize people’s faces and greet customers at Restaurants, but it can’t wander around the streets on its own. Similarly, the fearsome creatures developed by Boston Dynamics can climb stairs and navigate through the snow, but don’t expect to have late-night conversations about the meaning of life with these droids. And the boxy droids developed by Amazon Robotics can glide across warehouse floors, impressively moving merchandise and goods around, but that’s all they can do.
A smartphone is a combination of different technologies, all of which evolved separately in different stages. Eventually all the technologies matured to a sophisticated enough stage, thereby enabling to merge them together. That’s how the smartphone was born. A robot is no different from a smartphone. It’s essentially an embodiment of various complex technologies including speech recognition, visual computing and mechanical engineering, among other features. The good news is, the all-purpose, super-intelligent C-3PO robot is coming. But it’s not yet time to throw away your smartphone.