Should autonomous robots —that is, robots who can perform tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance--be armed with lethal weapons and allowed to decide for themselves whether to kill humans?
What if doctors could inject robots the size of microorganisms into our bloodstreams and send them to attack individual cancer cells, remove plaque deposits from the walls of our arteries, fix damaged kidneys, deliver drug treatments and perform various bodily repairs from the inside on a scale too tiny for regular-sized human surgeons to attempt?
What if you were able to make machines do things simply by thinking about the action that you want to happen? Imagine being able to adjust the air conditioning in your house without leaving your couch, simply by pondering your perception that the room is too warm for your taste, or being able to type without touching the keyboard. Or being able to order your personal Honda ASIMO robot to go into the kitchen and fetch you a nice cold bottle of Black Forest Berry Honest Tea, without even lifting a finger to press a button.
What if you had a duplicate of yourself? I’m not talking about a Second Life avatar or some other such simulation meant to be viewed on a laptop screen.
I’m talking about an actual life-size android, fashioned to match your physical proportions, hair color and facial features, and equipped with a speech synthesizer that duplicates the sound of your voice, and perhaps even equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities?
What if you could control your robotic double from a remote location, or even program it in advance to make whatever statements and/or perform whatever actions you desired?
I was going to write this week about Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his bold challenge in a recent speech that the U.S. should endeavor to generate 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2018. But I’ve decided to postpone that weighty discussion and instead examine another visionary proposal: robotic bartenders.
Unlikely as it may seem, there is a six degrees of separation connection between the two ideas. In addition to being the winner of the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election and a climate change crusader, Gore’s resume also includes occasional guest appearances as a talking-head-in-a-jar on the animated series Futurama — whose cast of characters also includes Bender, a hard-drinking automaton that has been known to close down a few 31st-century gin joints.
But I digress. If a robot can paint and weld in automobile plants, fly combat missions in Afghanistan and even vacuum the carpet in your living room, why shouldn’t it be able to mix at least a passable vodka martini?
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