The Bible says that God created humans in His own image. The modern philosophers might say that humans, thinking of themselves like God, make robots in their own image. While this is sometimes the case, most of the robots used in industry, manufacturing and health care look not like humans, but like the stuff of science fiction.
The naysayers claim that things are better this way, and perhaps they are. Who is to say that the human form is the most efficient? Opposable thumbs allow humans to use tools, but humans lack the microscopic vision which makes something like fetal surgery a normative practice. In this way, robots perfect not human form, but human idea.
As far back as the first century of the Common Era, there has been theory and discussion of automata being created and used to perform simple, basic functions. A thousand years later, in 1200, the first mechanical toys and devices began to be manufactured. Leonardo Da Vinci, perhaps suffering from the God-complex, drew plans in the 1400s for a ‘humanoid robot,’ predicating the realities of many Japanese robotic firms.
Now there are robots that can smell, taste, play ping-pong, keep their balance on rocky or slippery terrain, disarm explosive devices, perform complex surgeries and vacuum your rug. Some might say that engineers are still entertaining the fantasies created by 1950s visions of the future, but there is a lot of practical defense in place for funding in robot science and technology.
For example, if there are robotics that can recreate nervous system procedures, amputees may one day be equipped with new, feeling limbs. The same goes for visual perception robotics. If visual sensors can somehow be hooked up to optic nerve receptors, vision may one day be restored to the blind. This, of course, is the dream, and an adequate defense for the continued funding of robotic science.