The rise of the machines is just around the corner. Robot technology is moving into a whole new world.

It
is the stuff of science fiction, but should we fear the robot of the future or welcome innovation designed to
make life easier for us all? In the near future, robots may run our world. They could manage our cities, our
money, even the details of our private lives. They don't have minds of their own, but could they, if they did
what would happen to us? We've seen it at the cinema man wiped out by creatures of his creation for
example in the movie 2001, we had this beautiful spaceship with the state-of-the-art computer technology
and how was to carry out all commands given by humans. However, you know how humans are we're
messy. We give sloppy commands and commands were given to the computer that logically could not be
carried out and so. The robot said, “well, if the humans give me orders which cannot be carried out the
only logical way to carry out these ridiculous commands is to eliminate the humans” and that's precisely
what the robot did. That's the problem with robots, no common sense. Man's innate ability to think decide
and act has not always served the human race well, but wouldn't a world run by robots be worse much
worse. If there's an earthquake all of a sudden we have a shutting down of the water supplies and
the robot will say well we must take care of all the fires that are breaking out, it'll divert all the water to
taking care of the fires, and at that point there's gonna be a massive dislocation in the water supply inside
a city and the robot will simply not know which catastrophe is more important than another catastrophe
but such scare stories aren't slowing down robot research. In Japan, scientists are competing to recreate
the human race in metal plastic and silicon.

This is Azimu, the first humanoid to walk out of the laboratory and into the real world. It's designed to look
friendly, not the kind of robot hoods apis with a laser every step as mo takes has to be pre-planned and
its batteries only last for an hour but it's taken nearly 20 years to get this machine up and walking Masato
here assay was the project's chief engineer kai at least a common card in Nevada.
“It's our dream to come up with a robot that could be useful in people's everyday lives. I am 46 now and it
would be nice if I could make a thermal into the kind of robot I could use myself in the next 10 years by
the time I'm 55.” Skye you're no good to me as a most predecessor started off as just a pair of legs even
so he was a top-secret project scientists didn't want anybody to see their progress or witness their failures
this robot built in 1986 could only walk in a straight line and needed nearly 20 seconds to take a single
step, picking up the pace was a huge challenge. To walk upright, a person uses 200 muscles all
controlled by the human brain. For a top-heavy robot to walk on two legs, its computer has to perform a
constant balancing act putting a number at the wall what it tells you no matter how many times we try to
do this, it always fell over. Esther do you we refine it day by day over and over again and finally got the
robot to walk I understand engineers spent years monitoring human body movements and then
programming their robots to recreate them.
It took four years to get the speed up to a kilometer an hour it took another two years to get the robot to
cope with slopes and stairs.

Finally, in 1993, they'd been enough progress to attach the legs to something that looked like a body p1
was almost 2 meters tall and weighed a hundred and eighty kilos twice the average weight for a
man that size but its successor p2 was much lighter and more compact the first time I saw Honda
p2 I was impressed and amazed it was walking without wires everything was self-contained onboard
computers onboard batteries so it was impressive on that level but also just because Honda was
able to keep it a secret for 10 years this is the latest model to emerge from the lab and is a sign of what
may one day be in our homes the quest to build the first artificial human is highly competitive h7 is the
result of a multi-million dollar research project funded by the japanese government the objective the
creation of humanoid robots capable of performing complicated tasks like playing football keeping her eye
on the ball and kicking it with your feet may be child's play for humans but it's a major advance for
machines

James Khanna developed much of h7 software if I tell my daughter to go fetch my keys from the kitchen
table I don't have to tell her move your left foot in front of the right foot turn 90 degrees and then enter the
kitchen door she can do that automatically and we'd like to get robots to have that level of autonomy
h7 can track the ball with its eyes and make its own decisions about how to follow catch or kick it but
there are limits to what it can do of its own accord h7 may have mastered football but it's not so good at
other sports a whole new set of software is needed just to get h7 to pick up a bat h7 doesn't find the bat
by using its camera eyes instead every movement is planned in advance and written into its software h7
is no use if the bat is put in a different place the most intelligent robot in the world still can't match the
coordination and agility of a toddler the software that I wrote for h7 took over five years to develop and
over a hundred thousand lines of code and that involved getting the robot to move pick up an object and
put it from location a to location B it didn't include object recognition speech recognition other kinds of
sensing like computer vision functions robotics research has a history of constantly reinventing the wheel
every time a new machine was developed they had to write again from scratch the software to control it
so I really believe that we're not going to be able to make progress in robotics without some way to build
upon the lessons learned despite the challenges scientists are pushing forward the development of
humanoids believing there will soon be a need for them in the home and the workplace

if you take a look at the Japanese population it is aging aging rapidly labor is extremely expensive in the
United States because we have a large immigrant population cheap labor is not such a big problem why
be satisfied with a mechanical maid or Butler when you can get a real maid or a real butter but in Japan
mechanical servants have a bright future and not just in the home which is why the Japanese government
is funding the development of industrial robots HRP one is a remote-controlled robot in the future versions
of this robot could replace human workers on construction sites HR P 2 is designed to help people with
heavy manual work

it's remotely controlled by instructions

given through a headset creating a robotic workforce could be
big business a real boost to Japan's economy but there are still a few snacks to overcome staying upright
is a delicate balancing act humans who have ten billion neurons in their brain have spent over two million
years learning how to do it

Morph 2 is a miniature humanoid not always on its toes like a human it can
sense when it's off balance but it's not always successful at compensating but
when it does manage to stay upright its range of movement is impressive

a whole new meaning to agility tests this is morph 3 it's incredible flexibility is made possible by 26 joints
all coordinated by a hundred and thirty three sensors and gyroscopes which detect changes in pressure
and position but they can't process all that information as quickly as humans which is one reason they fall
over so often

While humanoids are still being developed other robots already being put to work

PackBot is a robot designed to help the police or Armed Forces in dangerous operations one of the
classic situations for the pack bot is a situation where a bad guy has barricaded himself inside a building
and a police force is outside looking to make an entry and they have very little information about what is
going on in that building so the robot is designed to climb stairs climb into that building look around
essentially put eyes and ears inside that building give an idea where the doors are where the stairway is
where the bad guys are how many bad guys there are if there are good guys and if the bad guys are still
alive pack ball can be controlled from almost a kilometer away it's a versatile robot equipped with
cameras microphones infrared sensors and sonar the satellite navigation system tells its operator where it
is as well as the role and pitch of the terrain we're looking at adding chemical sensors bomb bomb
detection sniffers mine mine detection platforms basically any kind of sensor that you can come up with
we can incorporate on the back of robotic pack bot is housed in an impact resistant aluminium shell that
can survive a three meter drop onto concrete at extreme temperatures it can move at speeds of almost
20 kilometers an hour and through three meters of water if it lands upside down its flippers turn it over
one reason it's so tough it has no wires that might break or become disconnected I'm at the landing clear
at this point it's been week we're clear one two three no this is only a police exercise but patbot has
already seen real-life action
having worked at New York's Ground Zero
helping in the search for survivors this
is particularly important now where
where the loss of human life isn't
tolerated in war during war or military
action or civil action for that matter
[Applause]
scientists are already working on the
next generation of pact BOTS with even
more capabilities the development of an
extending neck will enable the robot to
peer round corners I'm turning the robot
ok Tommy what do you got two people one
suspect and one hostage he's got a knife
in his right hand he's a female on the
ground Oh
[Music]
at the moment PackBot works alone but
there are situations when it will be an
advantage to have a whole team this is
becoming possible new technology called
swarm this group of little robots works
cooperatively at the moment they are
playing follow my leader the inspiration
for their software the behavior of ants
and bees in nature of 20 million
individuals some of the larger societies
event all come together and work for a
common goal and they don't have cell
phones they don't have internet at all
GPS but you have to be able to work
together collectively and to do complex
things like map their environment form
paths carry food around communicate
information to their nest mates things
like that so we're trying to get some of
that intelligence into robots swarm BOTS
can talk to each other without human
control follow my leader makes
communication easy especially
underground where radio links don't work
the swarm can pass messages through each
other until they reach the surface one
robot can say I need five robots to
follow me and five robots will run and
compete to be the five that get to
follow and they'll follow this robot you
know it look like a train if one of the
robots fails maybe it's motor dies or
maybe it gets caught in a crevasse the
world is very difficult it doesn't
matter because another robot can just
jump in and take its place teamwork
means the swarm can spread out at speed
covering a wide area quickly the robots
can create an up-to-the-minute moving
map of the disaster area so for example
you could put a lot of swarm members
into a burning building and they could
spread out and they could all have
sensors that say where the hot spots are
where the smoke density is where people
might be found so you've got this map
that's growing very quickly one robot
wandering around could never do that
ultimately the goal is to construct
thousands of swarm robots clever enough
to take on intricate tasks in difficult
environments
such as searching for landmines
rummaging through rubble in the
aftermath of an earthquake or even
exploring forbidden planets like Mars
another idea is that by having a large
number of robots they can all be
relatively cheap it's not so important
if one of them breaks so now if you
wanted to have a mission on Mars for
example imagine dropping a thousand
robots it doesn't matter if 80% of them
fail when they're dropped there's still
20% down there that are running around
collecting information whereas if you
just had one very expensive robot and it
broke the mission has failed and with
these uncomplaining automatons doing the
dirty work there's no risk to human life
robots can withstand the stresses the
strain the radiation the deprivation
that exists in outer space they don't
complain they don't require life support
and they don't have to come back but
Space Research will have job
opportunities for bigger robots -
Robonaut is a remote control robot
developed by NASA to work outside a
space station where there's danger from
space debris and cosmic rays safe inside
the space station the astronaut wears a
special visor and glove when he turns
his head the robots head turns - and
sends back video images of what I can
see when the astronaut moves his hand
the robot mimics the action
one advantage of humanoid robots is that
they can work with tools and equipment
designed for people to use
but if you don't live in a space station
you might want something a little bit
friendlier around the house how about a
robot that could greet you at the door
this is papa dro the first domestic
robot
coming soon to a high street near you
[Music]
papper o stands for pardon a personal
robot it's a pc on wheels it could act
as your personal secretary
it can take voice messages send and
receive email even operate the TV Poirot
is programmed to respond to human
requests it recognizes six hundred and
fifty voice commands and speaks three
thousand phrases it recognizes people by
their faces and recalls facts about them
like their blood types and birth dates
you know when peppero is listening to
you because it's ears turn green popular
internet opera can easily be linked to
the internet or telephone
this means that humans can check what's
happening at home when they're away for
example if you can't remember whether
you turned off the gas cooker you can
use Papa Roach to see pictures inside
your house so you can also check out the
pets at home and because Papa row is
compact and on wheels it's very stable
it won't crush small children or trip
over pets and if it does bump into
something it's unlikely to do any damage
Poirot likes to be stroked this tells it
that you're pleased and it remembers its
good behavior for future occasions and
if you need a dancing partner what did
you know Papa Rho is definitely for you
[Music]
pappa row can be as endearing or as
irritating as a two-year-old child but
it has one great advantage over any
toddler 20 years of research have gone
into today's robots but are they ready
to join the workforce our robots today
have the collective intelligence and
wisdom of a cockroach a retarded
cockroach a lobotomized retarded
cockroach however because of the
doubling time of computers I think that
by the year 2020 we may have robots that
are as intelligent as mice
perhaps as intelligent as a dog
if robots are really going to be useful
they are going to have to learn how to
learn the dream of developing a human
robot has endured for decades and
substantial progress has been made now
they can talk walk and sometimes
outsmart us playing chess against a
grandmaster demands intellectual skill
but in 1997 the world's greatest chess
player Garry Kasparov was beaten by a
computer called deep blue so if they are
so clever why haven't we put them to
work yet
the real problem why we don't have
mechanical maze and butlers is the
common sense problem things we take for
granted are almost impossible to perform
by robots we know that water is wet we
know that strings can pull strings
cannot push we know that when you die
you don't come back the next day
[Music]
it would take experts centuries to
program a robot to have the common sense
of a two-year-old so now robot designers
in America are trying a different
approach getting them to learn
coke is a robot that like a baby is
learning through experience cog has
several cameras through them it can see
objects in wide-angle or close-up it can
track objects sense and depict color you
see robots can see in fact robots can
see about 10 times better than you can
see but robots don't understand what
they are seeing they don't understand
anything more than lines and simple
geometric patterns at first Coke didn't
know where its arms stopped and where an
external object began but by seeing and
poking these toys cog is slowly learning
the map of its own arm and how to
distinguish a particular object from the
background
[Music]
cog now knows that cars move forwards or
backwards not sideways so even when the
car is placed in a different direction
cog hits it from the front or back if
robots can learn from experience they
won't have to be programmed for every
task but this initiative is still labor
intensive we'd like to be able to take
that robot in the future and show up
here's how to do that Eiling you know
you fold it this way you do that and and
that's how I am you do it now and we'd
like the robot to understand that they
have a map at throats own body and do
the tasks
this is k1 k1 isn't doing the ironing
yet but it does try to copy its
programmers work out
[Music]
judging by this performance no one is
going to let it loose on the ironing for
some time
[Music]
copying is just the first stage of
developing intelligence
if k1 is ever going to learn how to do
the ironing it will not only have to
know how to hold the clothes and move
the iron it will also have to understand
that the aim of the exercise is to get
the clothes
free from creases to achieve this ke
one's designer Yasuo Kuniyoshi sees a
future where robots will grow up and
learn alongside humans this might sound
like science fiction story but I'm
talking about a very long term ahead the
far future it can happen that newborn
human babies are assigned partner robots
from the beginning and then grow up
together with a robot a robot would
learn its human partners likes and
dislikes and adapt its behavior
accordingly but that's a long way off
for k1 after all that exercise it's time
to strip off and cool down
[Music]
my apartment
Dhar inventor Vania is teaching DB to
play air hockey
DB's camera eyes have been set up to
track the pucks bright color so far so
good as long as the lighting conditions
don't change
all right getting a little better but to
play the game
DB not only needs to see the puck but to
predict where it will be a few seconds
later my score the pop not always can be
seen sometimes it goes underneath an arm
or it's in a corner so when this happens
DB cannot see the puck anymore so it's
almost as if you were to play air hockey
and somebody was always to do this to
you so you're trying to predict and then
all of a sudden something covers your
eyes and then you they take your hands
away and now the environment has changed
once DB has learned how to keep an eye
on the puck it then needs reasoning
skills to decide its strategy
[Music]
having chosen it shot D beneath the
motor skills to execute it and all these
seeing reasoning and action skills need
to happen instantly the pack waits for
no man and no thing is it worth all this
effort just to teach a robot a game
through verbal communication you could
tell DB or teach dB new skills as you
would teach a person so for example if
you wanted to have DB do ironing in your
home you would have DB in the location
you would tell DB watch DB this is how
we are and we take the iron we move it
across the clothes and we look for the
wrinkles and we make sure we don't burn
and it would know about all these items
through these communications and little
by little build up more and more skills
one day you'll play as good as this well
I'm hoping you'll be better it's very
important that of course that you teach
your robot well and that it learns well
because you can have things this year
roll by trying to cook your dog or burn
your clothes or break your dishes and of
course this is not what we want if
robots could learn and repeat tasks just
by watching they could become invaluable
in the workplace
other developers are taking the concept
of a human robot one step further they
hope to produce a robot that not only
copies our movements but also our
emotions and facial expressions
Fumio Hara directs the faced robot
program at Tokyo's Science University
it's the easiest expression to replicate
is excitement the corners of the mouth
move up and eyes go down slightly
[Music]
kokumo huge además but for surprise the
eyes get bigger in the mouth opens like
this lucky mascot
[Music]
10 for fear you're scared
everything tightens up and the eyes are
slightly bigger and the mouth horizontal
[Music]
not exactly a pretty face and but a
functioning face the first of its kind
in the world silicon is stretched over
the skull made up of semiconductors
wires and Pistons the wires have to be
positioned in exactly the right place to
replicate the muscles in a human face
[Music]
but expressions like fear surprise and
anger use similar muscles and can be
difficult to tell apart so it's hard to
make the silicon look expressive
mahtim or omakase huge we call it
virtual communication we just want to
find out how well a machine can fool
people by creating realistic expressions
harder believes that a great deal of
communication is through facial
expression alone to communicate
effectively with humans robots will need
to express feelings we can understand
with the help of tiny video cameras
mounted behind the eyeballs this robot
can already read human faces and copy
what it sees it's programmed to
recognize and recreate six emotions but
Hara wants to give the face a voice so
the robot can not only look angry but
sound angry
[Music]
meet we4 mr. personality
[Music]
it really seems to enjoy tracking a red
ball and doesn't like being ignored
it shows surprise when the scientist
opens a bottle of vodka but it does like
the smell we4 can make expressions of
disgust fear anger surprise sadness and
happiness
once a robot can express these reactions
spontaneously it will be well on the way
to having a personality ningún for
successful communication the key issue
is compatibility two incompatible people
are not likely to become lovers or marry
each other the next step is to make each
individual robots personality harmonized
with individual people and imagine our
union Rodney Brooks is developing a
sociable humanoid robot he calls kismet
what do you think I'm too close
wife I get this close to you what do you
think right now kismet is marveling a
very young infant who doesn't really
have language so it babbles and does
turn taking as you can do with a young
infant back and forth but there's not
too many words that it understands and
it can mimic a little bit and we're
having it learn about simple objects by
talking to it can you see me
you know that's a bright light isn't it
it much more than the bright lights and
my face today someone come over here
kismet engages with people through an
expressive face-to-face interaction
Brooks was inspired by infant social
development and psychology kismet has a
bunch of different emotions and it will
react differently the same stimulus
depending on what emotional state it's
in so we never know from minute to
minute or even day to day how it's going
to interact with us you like me
yes kismet was designed to react to
social cues and learn from a human
instructor Kuznets a horsey
[Music]
fifteen computers are involved in making
kismet either bored lonely stimulated
tired talkative or silent it's still
only a rudimentary personality but
robots are slowly becoming more and more
like humans I think we'll still want
plenty of robots that don't have any
emotions my refrigerator works 24 hours
a day seven days a week and I don't want
to feel sorry for it having to work so
hard but I think there may be some roles
for emotions in robots that we want to
interact with on everyday basis because
there's a very intuitive way of us
understanding what's going on
robots are already in the workplace and
they may soon be in our homes but what
about more intimate life-changing
involvement
[Music]
Eric Harper looks like anybody else
[Music]
but one part of his body is completely
robotic
nine years ago Eric lost his right arm
in a printing press accident
the day I lost my arm I had been working
late the rest of the shift had gone home
and I jumped up onto the machine and
actually fell in and was drawn into the
machine and then it shut down I am stuck
in the press and day shift isn't going
to come in till 5:30 so I have four
hours to wait Eric was eventually
rescued but most of his right arm had to
be amputated I was right handed and
having lost my arm it was like oh this
is gonna kill me
no I'm gonna go on I'm gonna do what I
want to do I have a life to live and
it's not gonna stop me
[Music]
the robotics in Eric's new arm are
designed to respond naturally to his
body movements the arm consists of
microprocessors circuit boards motors
and gears it weighs nearly three kilos
electrodes in the socket receive
electrical impulses from what's left of
Eric's muscles
a valve seals the vacuum inside his
false arm helping to keep it in place
a computer reads the electrical impulses
from Eric's back muscles and bends his
robotic elbow raising his forearm
[Music]
Eric can make his hand close by flexing
his biceps and open by flexing his
triceps like all robots we have to run
on battery power and I have to pop out a
battery on the bottom just like this and
then get a new battery and put it back
occasionally I'll get caught and I'll
just run out of energy
[Music]
Erick's arm although not perfect has
changed his life
so will this technology one day be able
to improve our brains as well as our
bodies this stroke victim can't move or
speak but an electronic brain implant
gives him the ability to operate a
computer by the power of thought alone
his thoughts generate electrical
activity in the implant which is picked
up by an aerial link to the computer the
signals are then translated into action
and the cursor moves on the screen the
brain is able to communicate with
electronic devices really because they
speak the same language which is
electricity a two-way signalling system
is being developed so that implants can
also receive information from other
parts of the body
we want to bring touch in into the brain
directly using stimulation through
arrays of electrodes in the brain and we
think that it will be possible someday
for people who are are quadriplegic to
be able to feel their body again
external brain stimulation is already
being put to the test this is the
world's first radio-controlled rat
I didn't set out to make jihad ninja
rats what we wanted to do was an
experiment that gave us a sense about
how well animals understand signals that
come directly into their brain rats have
poor eyesight they use their whiskers to
find their way around in the dark three
electrical probes each the thickness of
a single hair were implanted in the part
of the rat's brain that picks up signals
from its whiskers the operator can
direct the rat by typing commands into
the computer in one way you could
compare the system to a child's more
controlled car and operate a standard a
laptop and sends out key signals
when the signals are turned off the rat
becomes confused until the next signal
is given
[Music]
dr. tawa believes his remote-controlled
rats could be very useful at the time we
were doing the experiment 9/11 happened
in New York and you know we were looking
at these images on television and it
occurred to us that now what we have in
front of us
is this could be a very cool technology
to solve many of the search-and-rescue
problems rats could be invaluable for
search and rescue amongst wreckage or
for sniffing out hidden landmines
unlike clunky machines rats are familiar
with rough terrain and small spaces the
concept has not been well-received by
animal rights groups such experiments
will be regulated and may be limited if
they're shown to cause unnecessary harm
or stress to the rats and mice but one
day humans might choose to have brain
implants themselves as the baby-boomers
of the world get older and older and
more and more scared of falling apart I
think you'll see lots and lots more
medical pressure to augment our bodies
and improve them through putting direct
silicon digital connections inside our
bodies we've seen that time and again
that what starts out as a technology for
helping people who are ill or sick or
injured then becomes optional and a
great example of that is cosmetic
surgery it started out for helping
people with burns but now cosmetic
surgery has a whole life of its own for
improving people's looks and well-being
if this is what we're prepared to do to
make ourselves more beautiful what would
we do to be brighter more talented more
athletic we could give people super
normal senses we can give them the
ability to have ultrasound if you have
ultrasound then you can detect the
presence of objects near you without
seeing them if you you might be able to
use infrared which would allow you to
see in the dark you might have super
normal reflexes you'd be able to hit a
baseball coming at you much faster than
you can now
[Music]
once you have that it's not very far to
getting a wireless internet connection
inside our head so I fully expect 20 to
25 years from now a lot of us at
grandchildren especially we walking
around with wireless internet
connections and there will be robotic
devices throughout our environment
millions of chips will be embedded in
our furniture utensils and clothing like
in a Disney movie we'll talk to tea
kettles and tea cups and we'll talk to
our furniture and instead of having a
robot doctor our robot doctor could very
well be our clothing for example with
chips in it our clothing will monitor
our health our heartbeat monitor our
bodily fluids and in case of an accident
our clothing will alert the authorities
and download our entire medical history
before the ambulance arrives the rise of
machines could be just around the corner
and this may be a source of hope not
fear because the robots running our
lives are unlikely to be the metal and
silicon creations of science fiction
they'll be part of us
the future of robots is ass and ass will
be the robots the combination of person
and robotic technologies can be far
better than any pure robot that we can
build
our new Robo beings a collaboration of
man and machine flesh and technology
not Homo sapiens but Robo sapiens
United instructure brain heart and soul
next tonight there's a terrifying game
of cat and mouse off the coast of
Bermuda an American and Soviet subs
collided nuclear sharks after the break