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So, How Real Are Robots?

CNN

April 19, 2010

[article image]
Robots can do all kinds of tasks, from folding clothes to fighting wars. But a professor says we should consider the ethics of unleashing robots. Credit: University of California, Berkeley

Robots already fold clothes, watch children, feed older people, fight wars, surveil cities, dismantle bombs, answer questions from tourists, aid surgeons, clean floors and provide sexual companionship. And they're getting more complex all the time, says Noel Sharkey, professor of robotics and artificial intelligence at the University of Sheffield in the UK.

In a talk held at the CHI2010 conference in Atlanta, GA, Sharkey says there are more service-oriented robots in the world than industrial bots, which tend to work factory lines and the like. Plus, they're getting cheaper.

In an interview, Sharkey talks about the ethics of the increasingly robot-infused world.

From CNN
View Full Interview
 

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