If you’re old enough to remember the movie Terminator, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, you probably remember what an antiquated robotics system looked like as the terminator came unmasked. While the technology looked pretty cool in the 1980s, improvements in the field of robotics could in the not so distant future put robots into our everyday lives.
In some places in the Unites States and across the world, robots have already begun to infiltrate daily lives. In Japan, robots are being used as companions for elderly people and in the United States, robots are being used in hospitals for tasks like delivering meals and moving laundry. While robots have long been implements in assembly line scenarios, it’s not going to be long before they are in hospitals and law enforcement. Experts suggest robots might be used to harvest crops, administer health care and take on more complex tasks, all within the next twenty years.
It likely won’t be that long before more robots start showing up in the military. Robotics experts and engineers around the world are working on PackBot and iRobot products to be used for fighting and additional military tasks like bomb diffusion and terrorist eradication.
Some robotics companies have considered using biology to integrate into their robots. It doesn’t sound like the androids found in Star Trek are that far away and a little closer to reality than the far away science fiction aspect of two decades ago.
Of course cost is going to be a factor for the everyday person to have a robot in their home or to work on their farm. It is more likely that robots will continue to develop and become more human-like in larger working environments like military, hospitals and nursing homes. If we’re all still around in 100 years, the landscape of the earth could look significantly different.