You could claim that moving from pixelated perception, where the robot looks at sensor data, to understanding and predicting the environment is a Holy Grail of artificial intelligence.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There are an endless number of things to discover about robotics. A lot of it is just too fantastic for people to believe.
The idea that a robot will become more aware of its environment, that telling it to 'go to the kitchen' means something - navigation and understanding of the environment is a robot problem. Those are the technological frontiers of the robotics industry.
People are fascinated by robots because they're machines that can mimic life.
We're fascinated with robots because they are reflections of ourselves.
Sometimes a technology is so awe-inspiring that the imagination runs away with it - often far, far away from reality. Robots are like that. A lot of big and ultimately unfulfilled promises were made in robotics early on, based on preliminary successes.
Our robots are signing up for online learning. After decades of attempts to program robots to perform complex tasks like flying helicopters or surgical suturing, the new approach is based on observing and recording the motions of human experts as they perform these feats.
Robots will someday, or maybe, wake up. They may be really smart. They may be as creative, smart and capable as human beings, and fully conscious, and self discerning with free will.
I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and I'm rooting for the machines.
Robotics are beginning to cross that line from absolutely primitive motion to motion that resembles animal or human behavior.
When you program a robot to be intelligent, you learn a number of things. You become very humble and develop enormous respect for natural intelligence because, even if you work day and night for several years, your robot isn't that smart after all.