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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with Text Stuff from Householst.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Text Stuff. My name

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Speaker 1: is Javin Strickland. I host the show along with someone else,

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Speaker 1: and that someone else is Lauren Boglebom right, and today

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Speaker 1: we wanted to talk to you about domestic robots. This

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Speaker 1: is a topic that a listener of ours wanted to

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Speaker 1: hear more about. So we thought, hey, we haven't really

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Speaker 1: covered domestic robots, so yeah, let's let's do that crazy

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Speaker 1: thing you. Yeah, and when people think of domestic robots,

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Speaker 1: I think that the image that immediately pops into most

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Speaker 1: people's minds is Rosie, the robot from the Jetsons. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the documentary series for the documentary series from the sixties

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Speaker 1: of what the Future Will be like? This was This

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Speaker 1: was created in three seven sixty two. By the way,

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Speaker 1: if you didn't know that, So we've we've got some

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Speaker 1: cracking to get on. Yeah. I think it's okay because

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Speaker 1: their vision of the future did not incorporate a pretty

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Speaker 1: amazing technologies that we have at our disposal right now.

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Speaker 1: That's fair, that's fair. But they did have this giant

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Speaker 1: robotic human, life size humanoid made that could you know,

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Speaker 1: sit around and drink milkshakes with you and have a

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Speaker 1: conversation and and raise your kids for your kids for you.

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Speaker 1: You're too busy space parents, right. So Yeah, anyway, Rosie

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Speaker 1: the robot kind of kind of was this idea of

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Speaker 1: like the robot made or the robot butler that could

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Speaker 1: take care of all the menial chores that most of

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Speaker 1: us do not like to do. Like it, it just

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Speaker 1: seems like it's one of those things that takes up

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Speaker 1: valuable time that you could spend fragging people on halo

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Speaker 1: floor doing literally anything else other than washing dishes again,

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Speaker 1: the folding laundry, cleaning windows. These are these these chores

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Speaker 1: that that take up time that uh, you know, we

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Speaker 1: just wish someone else would take care of that every

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Speaker 1: now and then, and sometimes we hire people for that,

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Speaker 1: which is in fact probably enormously cheaper and easier than

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Speaker 1: building a robot to do it, because a lot of

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Speaker 1: these things are actually really hard to do. But we'll

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Speaker 1: talk about that later. Yeah, So let's start off by

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Speaker 1: talking about where the word robot comes from. And I'm

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Speaker 1: sure a lot of you out there already know this story,

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Speaker 1: but there was a check writer, as in someone who

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Speaker 1: was from Czechoslovakia his name or the Czech Republic at

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Speaker 1: the time, but now the Czech Republic. Uh. Carol Kpek,

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Speaker 1: who wrote a play called Are You Are? And Are

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Speaker 1: You Are stands for Rossom's Universal Robots, and this was yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the word robot comes from the check word robota,

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Speaker 1: which means forced labor or servitude, and that word, in

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Speaker 1: fact comes from another word rob r a b. That

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Speaker 1: word means slave. So now, in the original form that

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Speaker 1: did not necessarily mean an artificial life form of any type.

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Speaker 1: It could a robot could be a person. It could

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Speaker 1: be someone who has been forced to conform to a

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Speaker 1: very specific set of behaviors and to perform those behaviors

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Speaker 1: for the benefit of some larger entity and this company, sure, sure,

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Speaker 1: this was kind of the crux of the play. It

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Speaker 1: was exploring whether or not it was okay for machines

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Speaker 1: to be used the way that we use people and yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: so eventually the term robot became more about a device,

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Speaker 1: a mechanism that can perform functions in an automated way,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps even in an autonomous way, autonomous and automated

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Speaker 1: being two different things. Autonomous means that it can do

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Speaker 1: it under its own direction, doesn't need someone there to

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Speaker 1: press a button for it to to be able to

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Speaker 1: do whatever it does, right, which is why we don't call,

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Speaker 1: for example, our dishwashers, or our toaster robins, or our

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Speaker 1: washing machines robots, even though technically they are robotic. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they have they have features that are common to robots,

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Speaker 1: though they themselves are not a robot. Kind of like

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Speaker 1: how I have features that are similar to a human

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Speaker 1: being and yet defy explanation. I'm gonna I'm gonna leave

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Speaker 1: that one right there. All right, that's fair enough. So

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Speaker 1: before we get into the whole domestic robot history and

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Speaker 1: and the sort of things that have developed over the

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Speaker 1: years in in the field of domestic robots, and where

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Speaker 1: we are today and where we expect to go, I

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Speaker 1: thought it'd be interesting to talk a little bit about

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Speaker 1: a survey that was conducted a few years ago by

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Speaker 1: a company called Persuadable Research. This was the last one

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Speaker 1: that I saw, was from two thousand twelves. Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: was the most recent one. The this survey was to

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Speaker 1: ask people, Hey, if you had the opportunity to purchase

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Speaker 1: a robotic device that would perform your chores for you,

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Speaker 1: would that be of interest to you? And sixty of

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Speaker 1: the people surveyed said, why, yes, it would. I would

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Speaker 1: love to have a robot that could do things like

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Speaker 1: clean windows or do laundry. Also, I would like a

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Speaker 1: robot that could move heavy stuff from one place to

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Speaker 1: another so that I don't have to do it, or

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Speaker 1: provide better home security, personal assistant duties. I think we're

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Speaker 1: high on the health monitoring was up there too. Uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and a lot of them. I thought that this

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Speaker 1: sort of robot would be a very useful device, and

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Speaker 1: and in most cases, I think they were thinking of

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Speaker 1: a single robot capable of doing multiple things, not not

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Speaker 1: not a whole bunch of different robots that are specialized,

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Speaker 1: but more of a general purpose robot. Now that that

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Speaker 1: was interesting enough, but also they were asking more questions

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Speaker 1: like what form would you want this robot to be in?

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Speaker 1: And it seemed like most people wanted to have a

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Speaker 1: humanoid robot. So we're talking about robots that have arms

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Speaker 1: and legs and a head, you know, things that we

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Speaker 1: would generally associate with the human form. And they also

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Speaker 1: did not want their robots to necessarily have a gender,

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Speaker 1: so the voice needed to be neither male nor female. Right,

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Speaker 1: so kind of that that stereo, yes, the one, the

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Speaker 1: one that we all have. We all have a robot

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Speaker 1: I think we all have a robot voice, and we

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Speaker 1: all have an Internet comments voice, like we have a

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Speaker 1: voice that we use when we describe Internet comments. People

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Speaker 1: like you guys were awful, you are your show was

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Speaker 1: bad and you should feel bad. That's my Internet voice.

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Speaker 1: That's not that's not a very kind Internet voice, Johnathan.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that everyone on the Internet leaves comments

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Speaker 1: sounds like that. I'm saying the people who leave those

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Speaker 1: kind of comments sound like that. It's fair. That's entirely

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Speaker 1: If they can insult me, then I can insult them.

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Speaker 1: You can, Yes, right, I have a I have a

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Speaker 1: medium eye for an eye. It's a harsh podcast landscape.

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Speaker 1: Guys like Donkey Kong, But no, that that that they want.

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Speaker 1: That's my Internet voice. But my robot voice is you know,

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Speaker 1: of course, like how can I help you? That's sort

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Speaker 1: of that's that's I actually do not possess a robot voice.

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Speaker 1: I don't think. I'm sorry. I'll work on one next time.

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Speaker 1: Next time, we must get vogel bound a robot voice.

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Speaker 1: Don't really do voices. This is about it. Okay, Well

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Speaker 1: we'll we'll break you of that habit sooner or later.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, And also that the people of responded said

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Speaker 1: they would be willing to pay fifteen th dollars or

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Speaker 1: more for a comprehensive robotic assistant. That's a lot of money. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean when you when you think about it, that's

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Speaker 1: you know, that's that's the mid range for a decent car, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about it, and you're talking that's that's running

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Speaker 1: around your house and doing everything you do. But if

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Speaker 1: it's a robot that's folding laundry, you're like, how much

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Speaker 1: is is the fact that I don't have to fold

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Speaker 1: laundry worth fifteen grand? I guess it all depends on

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Speaker 1: how much you hate laundry. Most people said that they

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Speaker 1: were their their limit was like anything that was a

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars or more was kind of outside the range.

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Speaker 1: I think that's interesting because there are robots on the

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Speaker 1: market right now, domestic robots that have very specific uses,

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Speaker 1: like they don't do things outside of whatever it is

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Speaker 1: they were meant four that are more expensive than that,

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Speaker 1: But there there are pool robots and we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: those in a bit that are so, this is so,

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Speaker 1: this is perhaps unrealistic of people to expect that sort

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Speaker 1: of price point. And as you were mentioning before, it

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Speaker 1: would end up being cheaper to hire someone to come

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Speaker 1: and do this work for you, at least over a

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Speaker 1: certain period of time. Maybe you could eventually find like,

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Speaker 1: how many years would it take for a robot to

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Speaker 1: make financial sense compared to hiring a human being? Somebody

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Speaker 1: go do that math for us. I do not feel

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Speaker 1: like doing it at all. Well, also, we don't have

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Speaker 1: all the variables, right because because you would need to

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Speaker 1: know what is the what's the average life span for

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Speaker 1: domestic robot? So without that knowledge, we can't really say, like, well,

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Speaker 1: if if you if you build in maintenance costs and

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Speaker 1: repair costs, then that adds to it, right, You don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily have to repair someone who comes in and cleans

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Speaker 1: your stuff. You just hire someone else because you know

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Speaker 1: you're a heartless person. I mean, I'm just talking about

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Speaker 1: me here, lear my perspective. I'm like, wow, it's really

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Speaker 1: sad that that my my, the people I hired to

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Speaker 1: come in and clean my windows broke their legs, Thank goodness,

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Speaker 1: there's this other cleaning service I can hire instead. I

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Speaker 1: can just leave those first guys right there on the

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Speaker 1: sidewalk and just keep going. This is turning into a

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Speaker 1: really terrible, really terrible discussion. Well, you should see the

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Speaker 1: piles of people outside my home. You think this is bad.

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Speaker 1: You should really take a look at them. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: so the takeaway that I got from this Persuadable Research

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Speaker 1: Corporation survey was that what people want from their domestic

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Speaker 1: robots is that they want them to be really cute

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Speaker 1: humanoid mobile PCs about in the price range, because a

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars is about what you would pay for a

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Speaker 1: for a really good PC, for for a decent PC.

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Speaker 1: And um Bill Gates actually in two thousand and six

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Speaker 1: wrote an essay called a Robot in Every Home that

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Speaker 1: was basically saying the same thing he said, If I

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Speaker 1: can quote, he said, we may be on the verge

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Speaker 1: of a new era when the PC will get up

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Speaker 1: off the desktop and allow us to see, here, touch,

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Speaker 1: and manipulate objects in places where we are not physically present.

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Speaker 1: And this was kind of his vision for the future

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Speaker 1: that that we would have. If you guys have seen

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Speaker 1: far Escape sort of like the d r D s

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Speaker 1: more so than Rosie the Rosie the Robot. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't know what a d r D and d r

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Speaker 1: D was. It stands for Diagnostic Repair Drones. And these

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Speaker 1: were these kind of little little bug shaped, little trilobyte

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Speaker 1: looking critters that would run around far Escape and do

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Speaker 1: minor repair work and play the Symphony of eighteen twelve

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Speaker 1: and etcetera, etcetera as you needed them to. Okay, I

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Speaker 1: can see the pressing need for the twelve over when

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Speaker 1: I'm when I'm talking to a muppet. Look, it depends

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Speaker 1: on how crazy you get while you're lost in space. Okay,

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Speaker 1: lost in space now, I can talk about that show,

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Speaker 1: but that had a different robot. Anyway, I'm getting off track.

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Speaker 1: So it's interesting that you say that this whole trilobyte idea,

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Speaker 1: because in fact, the very first domestic robot that I

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Speaker 1: could come up that I came across my research as

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Speaker 1: far as on the consumer level goes. So the first

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Speaker 1: robot that the average person could go out and buy

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Speaker 1: for their home was a very specific use robot. It

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Speaker 1: was the electro Lux Trilobyte, and it was a robot

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Speaker 1: that looked kind of like a trilobyte, and it was

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Speaker 1: a vacuum robot. And you've probably seen different vacuum robots.

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Speaker 1: We will talk about a very famous one in a

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Speaker 1: little bit, but the electro Lux Trilobyte was the first

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Speaker 1: robotic vacuum cleaner and it hit the market in two

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Speaker 1: thousand one. And the original model used ultrasonic sensors to

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Speaker 1: navigate through an environment. So essentially it's it's shooting out

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Speaker 1: ultrasonic sounds. So this is these are signals that we

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Speaker 1: cannot detect, their outside the range of human hearing, and

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Speaker 1: the signal would emit from the robot and if it

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Speaker 1: if it encountered anything, it would bounce back like a

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Speaker 1: vacuum bat. Yeah, it was a vacuum bat. It was

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Speaker 1: kind of like what Batman would be if he were

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Speaker 1: a domestic cleaning person as opposed to a crime fighter.

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Speaker 1: He would dress up as a bat and clean the robot.

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Speaker 1: What it would do is it would send out the

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Speaker 1: signal would the single would reflect back, and that's how

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Speaker 1: we wouldn't know how far away it was from some

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Speaker 1: other object. So when you have it set down to

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Speaker 1: clean your living room and you've got all this furniture

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Speaker 1: there as it would approach the furniture, the signal would

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Speaker 1: go out bounce back. The robot would know, all right,

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Speaker 1: I have to stop in three inches or I'm going

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Speaker 1: to run into something like couch or whatever. And uh

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Speaker 1: So the earliest model had these ultrasonic sensors and that

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Speaker 1: was pretty much it. You could you could lay down

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Speaker 1: these magnetic strips along the borders of your room so

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Speaker 1: that it would not go to cross which is important if,

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Speaker 1: for instance, you happen to have a staircase and you

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Speaker 1: don't want your extremely expensive trilobyte robot to go take

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Speaker 1: a tumble down the stairs. Yes, I imagine that those

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Speaker 1: first ones were not at all inexpensive. I'm sure they

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Speaker 1: were quite expensive. Yes, and uh, I think that it's

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Speaker 1: still fairly expensive to get most of these sort of

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Speaker 1: robots because as the years go on, the technology gets

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Speaker 1: more sophisticated, so each model that comes out has more features.

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Speaker 1: Uh The second round of the electro Luxtralobite also included

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Speaker 1: infrared sensors, so it made it a little easier for

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Speaker 1: the robot to sense its environment because one of the

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Speaker 1: problems with the ultrasonic ones was that if it came across, uh,

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Speaker 1: something that was like a really sharp curve or whatever,

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Speaker 1: the ultra the ultrasonic responses wouldn't be accurate enough for it.

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Speaker 1: So that was the first one. And it also had

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Speaker 1: a base unit that it could automatically find, again using

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Speaker 1: ultrasonic sensors. The base unit, you know, it sends a signal.

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Speaker 1: Based unit picks it up, it sends a signal. The

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Speaker 1: robot hones in on that signal so that it can

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Speaker 1: plug back in in charge exactly. So uh, I've seen

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Speaker 1: uses of this in toys as well. So for example,

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Speaker 1: there was uh. Lego has a series of robots that

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Speaker 1: you can build yourself in robot kits, right, and the

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Speaker 1: robot kits come with a programmable base and the programmable

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Speaker 1: bass actually really cool and lets you plug and play

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Speaker 1: robot commands into your robots. So essentially it's like it's

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Speaker 1: like if then commands, if this robot encounters this situation,

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Speaker 1: then the robot should behave this way. And one of

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Speaker 1: the things you can do is you can buy different

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Speaker 1: types of sensors to be on your Lego robot, and

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Speaker 1: one of them is the ultrasonic sensor, which allows a

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Speaker 1: robot to really zero in on objects and here at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works. For our big holiday party of we

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Speaker 1: had some of we had someone come in with these

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Speaker 1: robots and show them off. And one of the robots

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Speaker 1: had just simple infrared sensors that would allow it to

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Speaker 1: detect when it was coming close to the edge of

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Speaker 1: the play field right and it would turn around and

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Speaker 1: come back in. The other robot had the infrared sensors

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Speaker 1: and the ultrasonic which allowed it to zero in on

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Speaker 1: the its opponent so it could go right after the

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Speaker 1: other robot. Uh. Clearly in the domestic situation here we're

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Speaker 1: talking more about the robot just avoiding damn image, also

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Speaker 1: avoid damaging other stuff in the environment, like your furniture. Um.

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Speaker 1: I think this is a good time to take a

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Speaker 1: quick break and thank our sponsor and now back to

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Speaker 1: the show. Are getting back into domestic robots. There's a

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Speaker 1: company that you pretty much have to talk about called

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Speaker 1: I Robot, which is kind of funny. I Robot makes

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Speaker 1: me think of something else. Yes, yes, yeah, we didn't

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Speaker 1: even mention aac asthmov well earlier. I think this is

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Speaker 1: a perfect opportunity before we dive into the company. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: science fiction writer working in how you might be better

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Speaker 1: at this than I am in the sixties, Is that correct?

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Speaker 1: And earlier? Yes, and earlier. But um, I've wrote wrote

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Speaker 1: the three laws of robotics. Yeah. These were the laws

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Speaker 1: that that in within the Asimov stories guided the robots

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Speaker 1: behavior so that they would try and follow ethical programming. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The idea being that the basic three rules, I don't

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Speaker 1: have them written in front of me, so I apologize

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Speaker 1: for the fact that I'm going to get the out

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Speaker 1: of order and that I'm paraphrasing. But that the robot

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Speaker 1: could not do anything to harm itself unless it would

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Speaker 1: mean that it would allow others to come to harm. So,

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Speaker 1: in other words, first, robot couldn't harm itself. A robot

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Speaker 1: could not harm other people. Uh. And there was another one.

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Speaker 1: I think it's property that robots can't hurt. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: the most important rule of all of them was that

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Speaker 1: a robot could not allow could not hurt a person

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Speaker 1: or allow a person to be hurt to come to

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Speaker 1: damage yes through inaction uh. And that overruled all other

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Speaker 1: robotic rules. So if it meant that the robot would

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Speaker 1: end up being damaged in the process of preventing a

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Speaker 1: living thing from being hurt, the robot would go ahead

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Speaker 1: and override that rule and allow itself to be damaged

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Speaker 1: so that could save the person. Uh. Most of Asimov's

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Speaker 1: stories involving robots had had stuff to do with unintended

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Speaker 1: consequences of these what what appeared to be ironclad rules,

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Speaker 1: because when you give a logical set to a very

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Speaker 1: sophistic computer, it may or may not find ways around

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Speaker 1: right and and it's not necessarily that the computer is

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Speaker 1: trying to behave in a in a a malevolent way.

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Speaker 1: For example, here's another example. This is one of those

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Speaker 1: things about the robot apocalypse that you always, you know,

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Speaker 1: hear science fiction writers talk about, and some futurists as well. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Let's say that you have a super intelligent computer robot,

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Speaker 1: and you tell the robot, uh I want you to

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Speaker 1: make humankind. Uh I want I want you to bring

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Speaker 1: about world peace. You know you're you are smarter than

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Speaker 1: we are bring about world peace. It's possible that the

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Speaker 1: robot could come to the conclusion that the reason why

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Speaker 1: there's not world peace is because there are people, all

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Speaker 1: of those pesky humans running around causing wars. So you

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Speaker 1: kill all humans and then you've got peace. So Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's that's the the classic example. But so you

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Speaker 1: don't have to worry about your domestic vacuum robot doing that.

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Speaker 1: Probably not. I've I've known I've known an I Robot rumba,

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Speaker 1: and it did not seem malevolent, very very malevolent to me.

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Speaker 1: My dog was not too share But the dog might

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Speaker 1: have a completely different opinion about the intentions of the

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Speaker 1: I Robot roomba. All right, well to talk about I

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Speaker 1: robot before we we talked about the roomba. What's interesting

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Speaker 1: to me is that it's a company that was formed

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Speaker 1: in nineteen by three m I T associates. Uh. Those

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Speaker 1: three m I T associates were Rod Brooks, Colin Engle,

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Speaker 1: and Helen Grinder, and they wanted to bring robots out

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Speaker 1: of the realm of academ and an industry. Those were

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Speaker 1: the two places where you would find a robot pretty

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Speaker 1: much before nineteen ninety. With some exceptions. There were some

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Speaker 1: toys that were I had a very annoying robot toy

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Speaker 1: when I was a young child, all of all of

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Speaker 1: the noises. My my aunt, who didn't have kids yet,

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Speaker 1: got it for me. Of course, that's always the relative

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Speaker 1: who does that. Yeah, so there were toys and like

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Speaker 1: hobbyists had some access to some robotics, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of people were doing d I y stuff, but much

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Speaker 1: like the field of early computers, most people were just

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Speaker 1: kind of going like, what is this thing good for? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so what can we do with it? Consumers didn't have

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Speaker 1: an option as of yet. This is way back in purchase. First,

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Speaker 1: they well, first their company was called I S Robotics,

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Speaker 1: but they would change that further down the line, and

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Speaker 1: they originally built their business plan on the idea of

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Speaker 1: space exploration robots. So their first designs were for NASA

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Speaker 1: and UH. They created some robots that were meant for

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Speaker 1: things like lunar exploration and UH spaceship robot type creations

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Speaker 1: and planetary exploration robots, and these designs allowed them to

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Speaker 1: get some contracts with the government. And the whole point

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Speaker 1: of them making these designs, besides the fact that this

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Speaker 1: was like they were genuinely interested in, was that it

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Speaker 1: would allow them to gain the capital they would need

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Speaker 1: to invest in a consumer robot, because that's not a

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Speaker 1: small undertaking. Remember this is a decade before we see

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Speaker 1: the first consumer robot on shelves, so it's as Lauren

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Speaker 1: was saying before. It's not the most efficient or economically

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Speaker 1: feasible way for you to take care of minor chores

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Speaker 1: around the house. It could be a very expensive thing.

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Speaker 1: So they needed to raise some capital first before they

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Speaker 1: could start getting into consumer robots. You know, they couldn't

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Speaker 1: just hit the ground running doing that, So first they

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Speaker 1: started working on robots for space exploration missions. They developed

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Speaker 1: a robot called the I Robot five Tin PackBot, and

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Speaker 1: this was a search and rescue and bomb disposal robots.

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Speaker 1: I was used by the military, and they still do

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Speaker 1: a bunch of military work. I believe they do. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you've got to hope that your room bud does not

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Speaker 1: get mixed up with the PackBot five ten yes, fingers

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Speaker 1: crossed to be fair. Of the five tin pac bots

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Speaker 1: not it's not a military robot in the sense of

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Speaker 1: one's weaponized. Most of these are in fact going on

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Speaker 1: reconmissions or to defuse bombs where so that you know,

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00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:14,879
Speaker 1: or or possibly to uh, like I said, search and rescues.

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00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:17,239
Speaker 1: So for first responders, they might send a robot if

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Speaker 1: there's a building, for example, that's been the target of

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Speaker 1: a bomb, then sending a robot in to look for

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Speaker 1: survivors could mean saving the lives of first responders. You know.

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Speaker 1: It's it's one of those things where you think, well,

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Speaker 1: this is a really expensive robot, but compared to a

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Speaker 1: human life, it is negligible. So uh, I Robot began

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Speaker 1: to make those as well, and again this helped I

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Speaker 1: Robot gain the capital they needed to go into the

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Speaker 1: consumer market. And one of the other big projects they

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Speaker 1: did before they got into consumer robots was called Auto Cleaner.

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Speaker 1: An auto Cleaner was meant for sc Johnson wax and

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Speaker 1: as an industrial cleaning robot. Uh. And this this is

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Speaker 1: kind of the project that inspired a couple of the

401
00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:05,439
Speaker 1: engineers once the project was winding down, to look into

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Speaker 1: a way of building a consumer model of and that

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00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:13,119
Speaker 1: was what would eventually become the Rumba. And uh it

404
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 1: was when they first started working on it, and the

405
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Speaker 1: roombo would not hit store shelves until September two, so um.

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Speaker 1: You know, by then, the the electro Lux Trilobyte had

407
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Speaker 1: been on the market for almost a year and then

408
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:31,200
Speaker 1: they launched the robot, which don't totally different. Company obviously

409
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:34,719
Speaker 1: launched the Roomba, which has I think become almost like

410
00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 1: the synonymous, yeah exactly, or xerox it's it's or jello fridge,

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00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:44,200
Speaker 1: Yeah it's. It's one of those things where the term

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00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:48,880
Speaker 1: has almost just substituted the idea of vacuum robot roomba

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Speaker 1: shorthand as of two thousand eleven, over six million of

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Speaker 1: the buggers have been sold. So so, um, there's a

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Speaker 1: whole bunch of jokes that are coming to mind, and

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Speaker 1: I'm going to leave them all alone. X silent, but

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Speaker 1: you're all welcome. Robot does make several other kinds of things, Yes,

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Speaker 1: they do. They make They make a robot scuba, which

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00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:14,280
Speaker 1: is a mop. Yes, scuba actually has an interesting approach. Well,

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00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: it's good to compare it to the roomba. So the

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00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 1: roomba uses essentially three different kinds of brushes. There's one

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00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:24,720
Speaker 1: brush that that just sort of helps sweep particles within

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Speaker 1: the path into the path of the roomba. But then

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Speaker 1: it has these two brushes that are used to pick

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Speaker 1: up the larger types of debris. And uh so these

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Speaker 1: two brushes spin in a way where they're one is clockwise,

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00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 1: the other's counterclockwise, and they use that motion to I'm gesticulating,

428
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:47,199
Speaker 1: and that's not helping. Yeah, they're they're using this this

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00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:51,400
Speaker 1: opposite rotating motion to flick stuff up into the bin

430
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 1: that the that is inside the roomba, the the refuse

431
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: bin if you prefer trash bin um. And then it

432
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,119
Speaker 1: also has a vacuum that uses suction to suck up

433
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 1: the finer particles, finer being smaller, not of higher quality.

434
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:11,399
Speaker 1: And then the scuba its method is it uses it

435
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:13,920
Speaker 1: has a vacuum as well to suck up loose particles.

436
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:18,879
Speaker 1: And then it sprays the floor with a combination of

437
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:23,199
Speaker 1: water and cleaning solution, then uses a rotating brush to

438
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:26,680
Speaker 1: scrub the floor. Then it sucks up the dirty water

439
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: into a waste bind that is separate from the water

440
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:33,880
Speaker 1: and cleaning solution bend. So there's two different containers inside

441
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 1: the scuba for this stuff, so that way you don't

442
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: mix the two. Clearly you wouldn't want dirty water to

443
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: go back into there. And then uh, it uses a

444
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 1: technology called I adapt to monitor and respond to its environment.

445
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: So the rumba and the scuba both have to be

446
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: able to maneuver through an environment and uh and cover

447
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 1: an entire floor, because I mean, it wouldn't do you

448
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:01,200
Speaker 1: any good if the Roomba just kind of wandered aimlessly

449
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 1: and then went to its charging station. You go in

450
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 1: and like, well, this one meaningless path is clean, but

451
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: everything else is filthy. So it has to be able

452
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: to make its way around in a in a space

453
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: that was not necessarily intended for a robot to move around, right,

454
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: Because Yeah, while humans can instinctively look at a coffee

455
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: table and go, I shouldn't walk directly into that. Yeah,

456
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:26,920
Speaker 1: robots don't necessarily necessarily know that. Off the top. They

457
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: have to actually be programmed to not do that. We'll

458
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: get into more of that in a second too, but yeah,

459
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,360
Speaker 1: those are the two big ones, Roomba and Scuba. Yeah, yeah,

460
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:39,159
Speaker 1: they I think it's CS, or it might have been.

461
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 1: And they also introduced the I Robot Luge, which is

462
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,359
Speaker 1: a gutter cleaner. Yeah. I've seen examples of the luge

463
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:49,120
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, but it's it's essentially this

464
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 1: thing that you put in your gutter and it just

465
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 1: kind of goes it goes down like a bullet and

466
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 1: then just starts scoop it out gunk. So do not

467
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,679
Speaker 1: stand near your gutter while the all that sucker is

468
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 1: going to stand in your gutter that's near your gutter,

469
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 1: like or under. Yeah. Remember though, if your head's in

470
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 1: the gutter, your eyes are looking at the stars, just

471
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 1: a paraphrase. And my that is deep. Oh that's pretty

472
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,200
Speaker 1: you know, I can get pretty deep in the gutter anyway.

473
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 1: So there are other types of domestic robots as well.

474
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 1: I mean these these were probably the best known because

475
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:28,479
Speaker 1: they are because it's a huge brand and they've been

476
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: around for a few years. But there's a robotic lawnmowers.

477
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:34,719
Speaker 1: I think we're I think I have robot actually does

478
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: one of those as well. Yeah, so they might I

479
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 1: know that. I know there are quite a few brands

480
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: that do have robotic lawnmowers, and so these are again

481
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: using that same those same technologies, are using collision detection

482
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: to make sure that they don't bang into anything. Uh.

483
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: Most of them have a little kill switches inside them,

484
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: so they if they're tilted or turned over, the blade

485
00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:00,359
Speaker 1: stopped spinning immediately, so that way you don't endanger anyone

486
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:02,880
Speaker 1: like a little kid wondering what this thing is, I'll

487
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: put my hand on it. Yeah, that's that could be dangerous.

488
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,880
Speaker 1: And they also can you know, you can define the

489
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 1: parameters of your yard so that the lawnmower works within

490
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: those parameters, and doesn't you know, just suddenly like well,

491
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: all done here, let's do the neighbor's yard, and then

492
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: the next one, next one. So there there are examples

493
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:27,680
Speaker 1: of that. They it works on very similar uh technologies

494
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 1: as the vacuum robots. Another similar robots window cleaning robots

495
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 1: that use suction to attach themselves to a window. And

496
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 1: then again with the cleaning solution and the interesting water.

497
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:43,439
Speaker 1: I haven't seen any of these. They sound terrifying. There

498
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 1: was one unbuild at CS called the Eco vac Windbot.

499
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: I wish I had seen that now, and uh it's yeah, yeah,

500
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: it's supposed to debut later this year for under four

501
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: dollars supposedly, and yeah, reusable pads to wash and dry.

502
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 1: It has a little squeegee in there, so I guess

503
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: you said it on the window and then it goes

504
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. This is another example of why

505
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: people are a little disappointed, not that they should be,

506
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: but they're disappointed in domestic robots because it's not a

507
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,439
Speaker 1: robot that just comes out of a closet and then

508
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 1: takes a look around says, oh, these are the four

509
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 1: things that need to be done in this room, Like

510
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 1: I need to to sweep and mop the floors, and

511
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 1: need to clean the windows, need to fold the laundry,

512
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: and I need to kick the kid off the TV

513
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: because he's been on it too long, which is what

514
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 1: you know, Rosie, the robot could do. Um. Yeah, I've

515
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:35,640
Speaker 1: got one called the dress Man. Dress Man. Dress Man

516
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: looks like a kind of a mannequin torso, but it

517
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: essentially uses uh in. The robot itself inflates and uses

518
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: hot air to dry and press shirts. It's a robotic iron.

519
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: That's that's terrific. Yeah, I could use one. I definitely

520
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: tend to wear wrinkled stuff. Yeah, I think I iron

521
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 1: approximately never, so that's uh. There's also robots in pet care,

522
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: robotical litter boxes that self scoop away, that's a valuable service,

523
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: refilling food and water trays. There are robot pool cleaners,

524
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: which we talked about it. You know, I mentioned that

525
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: there was um and and you know that these are

526
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: all different levels of sophistication. Not all of them need

527
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: all the sensors that other ones need because the job

528
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: they do doesn't require it, So uh, not every single

529
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: robot is going to be decked out with sensors. However,

530
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: the future robots might might be decked out with sensors.

531
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of development in the robots space,

532
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 1: people who want to create general purpose robots that can

533
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:48,959
Speaker 1: tackle different tasks so that you don't have, you know,

534
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 1: eight different robots to do all of your chores. You've

535
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 1: got one robot that can do all of them. Right.

536
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 1: Willow Garage is one company that has been making a

537
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: lot of waves. Yeah, they've got a robot all the

538
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: PR two which stands for Personal Robot to the number two.

539
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: And it's essentially a research and development platform. It's not

540
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 1: necessarily meant to be a robot that a consumer will

541
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 1: go out and buy. First of all, it's like around

542
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: four dollars, prohibitively expensive for most of us, including myself.

543
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: Um And but what what this is meant to do

544
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 1: is it's meant to allow people to build apps, robot

545
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 1: apps that would increase the functionality of the robot. So

546
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 1: you might create an app that's a laundry folding app,

547
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: or an app that's a fry an egg app. And

548
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: the robot is humanoid in the sense that has arms,

549
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: it's got like sensors that are in a head head

550
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: like thing. Yeah, it looks like a torso with arms

551
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 1: and uh wheels. It doesn't have legs. It's gonna it's

552
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: gonna a wheeled base and it's a it's a little

553
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: from what I saw. I didn't see like an actual

554
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: scale like next to a human being. But to me,

555
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: it like they came up a little higher than your

556
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: waist maybe mid chest area is what looked like. It

557
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: could be that they're much taller than that, but that's

558
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: not what it seemed to be. When I was looking

559
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: at the videos, UM, all of the robot videos that

560
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: I've watched in the past twenty four hours are running

561
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 1: into my head. So I've got no You're watching a

562
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 1: lot of like robots that had nothing to do with this,

563
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: and it's just just robots, transformers, Michael Bay kick stuff,

564
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: blew up Anyway, would much much better robot videos than

565
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: those well done. You Shall live. So the PR two

566
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: robot is really meant for developers to create software for this.

567
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: This roll right. It's all open platform, open source developing.

568
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:49,719
Speaker 1: UM is highly encouraged, and it's mostly trying to get

569
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: people excited about it. Also, will Garage is doing the

570
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 1: turtle Butt, which works together with i Robot makes something

571
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: called the Create which is a room bob base that

572
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: has a loading dock for whatever other stuff you want

573
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 1: to kind of shove in there. And it's for home developers.

574
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: Um you can. You can hook it up with that,

575
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: connect with a netbook anything else you want, and teach

576
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: it how to do your own stuff. Neat. Yeah, things

577
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: that allow hackers more tools to play with stuff is

578
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 1: always cool. And the PR two has some pretty hefty

579
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 1: hardware on it. It's got two computers on it that

580
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: have eight core processors um each. Each computer has an

581
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: eight core processor, twenty four gigs of RAM, and two

582
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: terabytes of disk space. Uh and um. According to that,

583
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 1: to to what I was to one of the articles

584
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: I was reading, all of that heavy duty hardware gives

585
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,479
Speaker 1: the PR tow the capability of folding a towel in

586
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: just six minutes, which is down from twenty four minutes,

587
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 1: which just means it's not the most efficient towel folding

588
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 1: device ever. Well to share, But towels are towels are tricksy? No, yes,

589
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: tell other boy. Towels are so much trickier than say,

590
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: t shirts. Well, I mean, you know, if if you're

591
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: if you're looking at it as a as a human,

592
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: then no, towels are pretty simple. But if you're looking

593
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: at it as a robot, towels are are floppy, they

594
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: move around, they don't they don't. And here's here's the rub.

595
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: This is the problem, is that teaching a robot to

596
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 1: do something that's simple for a human is incredibly complex. Yeah.

597
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: I mean, if if you teach a robot, how do

598
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: you play chess? For example? A chess is one of

599
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 1: those if then statement kind of things. Only so many

600
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 1: potential things you can do within a chess game. There

601
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 1: are a lot of them, but there is a limit,

602
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: there's an upward limit of the things you are capable

603
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: of doing within the context of a chess game. If

604
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: you ask a robot, however, to go to the kitchen,

605
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: pick up a mug of tea and bring it back

606
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: into the podcast room, that's I mean, that's that's incredibly complicated, yeah,

607
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: because you never know what could be in the way.

608
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 1: I mean, if the environment is constantly the same and

609
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: the parameters for that task are always identical, that's one thing.

610
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 1: But when you're in an environment that's dynamic that can

611
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 1: change over time. Maybe there's a chair that's in the

612
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:11,960
Speaker 1: way that normally wouldn't be. Maybe the mugs are all dirty,

613
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: or maybe there's only only clean mugs are in the

614
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: dishwasher as if people use that thing, Come on, how

615
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: stuff works people? Or or maybe maybe some mugs are

616
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: more delicate than others and it crushes the mug to

617
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: a fine powder instead of picking it up, and then

618
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: pours the tea on it and brings you a what

619
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: pile a mug powder which is not delicious. No, it's

620
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:37,399
Speaker 1: I recommend you do not drink ceramic powder that would

621
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 1: probably not go overwhelm. But yeah, I mean that's the

622
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: thing is that teaching a robot to deal with these

623
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: kind of changing environments is really challenging, and there are

624
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:49,279
Speaker 1: a lot of companies that are working on this with

625
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: various types of artificial intelligence to deal with this. I mean,

626
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 1: you think about it this way. If I walk into

627
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:58,719
Speaker 1: a room that I have never been in before, but

628
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: I have all of my norm mole senses, right if

629
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: the lights are on and I'm able to see, I've

630
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: got my glasses on because I am here sided. Let's

631
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: say I walk into this room and I take a

632
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 1: look around the room. I can get around that room

633
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: fairly effectively, assuming there aren't like laser death traps or

634
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:18,479
Speaker 1: something in it, just a typical room, like there's there's

635
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:20,839
Speaker 1: some chairs and some other furniture around. As long as

636
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 1: I haven't built the room right, I can get from

637
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:26,280
Speaker 1: point A to point B without killing myself or bumping

638
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 1: into something, or you know, otherwise making an idiot of

639
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:33,399
Speaker 1: myself more so than I normally do. A robot goes

640
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 1: into that room if it's never been there before, it

641
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: has to have a lot of sophisticated equipment to be

642
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:41,720
Speaker 1: able to map out that room and then maneuver through

643
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: that map. And it also needs to be able to

644
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: map dynamically to be able to update this map in

645
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: real time, and which is a lot of processing power,

646
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 1: a lot of processing power, and it requires fairly sensitive

647
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 1: and sophisticated sensors. So we take it for in it

648
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: because it's our natural way of life, you know, we

649
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: walk into a room and that's just the way things are.

650
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: But for a robot, there is no natural way of life.

651
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 1: We have to program all of that into the robot,

652
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:14,399
Speaker 1: and that is really really tricky and It gets even

653
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: more tricky when you start talking about things like can

654
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: the robot navigate stairs? There are some robots that can.

655
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 1: Honda's Asimo can go up and downstairs, but it needs

656
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 1: to be the stairs have to be programmed in Asimo.

657
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:30,279
Speaker 1: At least in the last I read, Asimo could not

658
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 1: navigate us upstairs that it had not encountered before. It

659
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: could get through a room it hadn't encountered before, because

660
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:41,880
Speaker 1: its sensors were sophisticate enough so that if you said,

661
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: all right, as Amo, I need you to pick up

662
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:46,839
Speaker 1: the red ball that's in this room, as Amo could

663
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:48,920
Speaker 1: navigate through a room even if I've never seen it

664
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 1: before and get to the object. And this is if

665
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: you haven't seen one of these critters. It is. It

666
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 1: is bipedal. It looks more or less like a like

667
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 1: a person. I think it's about four ft two. Yeah,

668
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: it's a small as human. It's it's Lauren's size. Welcome. Hey,

669
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:05,359
Speaker 1: I'm five too, I'm gigantic compared to that. Take him,

670
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: totally take it, I keep saying him. But as Amo

671
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:11,400
Speaker 1: doesn't technically have a gender. It is genderless. It is

672
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,360
Speaker 1: it is a robot that was like a little spaceman

673
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,399
Speaker 1: that does it. Kind of honestly, it creeps me out.

674
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 1: I'm kind of sort of not okay with humanoid robots.

675
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: I mean, have you seen it run? I have? It

676
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: has this little hopping run because Asthma that was that

677
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 1: was one of the things that was famous about Asthma

678
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: was that was the first robot of that size to

679
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: be able to run. And by definition, running is a

680
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 1: is a method of conveyance where at some point both

681
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 1: your feet are off the ground, and most robots had

682
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: to have at least one foot in contact with the

683
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: ground at all times in order to support over and UH,

684
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 1: and it does mean that you have to program very

685
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:53,839
Speaker 1: sophisticated sensors in the robot to be able to have

686
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 1: both feet come off the ground and when when a

687
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 1: foot makes contact with the ground again, the robot has

688
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: to be very carefully balanced so that can react in

689
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: the right way so it remains upright and as Amo.

690
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:08,719
Speaker 1: They achieved that with Asimo, so when it runs, it

691
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:11,879
Speaker 1: it's really this little hoppy run that looks kind of

692
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,839
Speaker 1: comical when you when you first see it. UM. But

693
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 1: Asimo also had a lot more sophistication than UH than

694
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: previous versions of robots did and um I wrote a

695
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: whole article about Asimo, and I got a chance to

696
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: see Asimo in person. Actually anyone could, because Asimo was

697
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 1: at Disneyland's in Oventions and uh it was it was

698
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: interesting to see. Now again, Asimo is kind of like

699
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 1: an example of what a domestic robot might one day

700
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: look like. But it it really illustrates how challenging it

701
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: is to build a robot that is bipedal and humanoid.

702
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 1: It just doesn't it's not it's not the easiest design,

703
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: all right, it doesn't necessarily make development sense. It's easier

704
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 1: in the long run to build these kind of small

705
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 1: things the room by the window washer, etcetera, etcetera. If

706
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: we're going to I mean, because we can either we

707
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: can either build robots to interact with our environment, or

708
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: we can build our environment to interact more easily with robots.

709
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: And that would involve, you know, having an extra entire

710
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: space in our kitchen so that a robot can can

711
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:24,800
Speaker 1: access all of our food and cook for us, or

712
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: rather than you know, set it loosen there and just

713
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: kind of see what it does. Yeah, it's it's there

714
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:32,760
Speaker 1: are a lot of challenges and grant. They're very smart

715
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 1: people working on these challenges to try and and overcome them.

716
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:40,760
Speaker 1: There are other challenges as well. There are emotional challenges,

717
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: because the more humanoid you make a robot, the more

718
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 1: likely you are to develop some sort of emotional attachment.

719
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: There are people who find their room bas to be

720
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:52,959
Speaker 1: perfectly charming. There are people who have named their room bas.

721
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: Apparently most people name their room bas. Yeah, so it

722
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: ends up becoming almost like a pet, even though this

723
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: is this is a object that has no sentience. There's

724
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:07,320
Speaker 1: no emotion in this object whatsoever, but they seem because

725
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 1: they are animated and the move around and go through

726
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:12,919
Speaker 1: an environment. I used to talk to mine all the time,

727
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: and to be fair a long and you just talk

728
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:20,360
Speaker 1: to yourself all the time, so entirely fair, Yeah that

729
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 1: was I mean, yeah, so of course you talked to

730
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: it all the time. However, if it had looked I mean,

731
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 1: you know, the way the way that I reacted to

732
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: the videos I was watching of of the Asimo, I'm

733
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 1: kind of creeped up by it. I'm not really okay

734
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 1: with humanoid robot, which brings to the concept of the

735
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 1: uncanny valley, right where you start to the closer you

736
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: approach the appearance of a human, the more likely you

737
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: are to make it an unsettling experience for someone to

738
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 1: look at. Right. Um, now, if you were to ever

739
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: get to a point where the robot is indistinguishable from

740
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 1: a human being, you would bridge theoretically, you would bridge

741
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 1: the uncanny valley. It would no longer be an issue.

742
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:04,359
Speaker 1: But the problem is when you get really close but

743
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: not exactly there, so that there's something that's off, and

744
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 1: it just really it unsettles you in a in a

745
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: very Freudian itch in between your shoulder blades kind of way.

746
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: It's it's it gives you the willies and the in

747
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 1: the Americans sense the word plate. Please Brits, don't write

748
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 1: to me. I'm not being rude. I'm not trying to

749
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: be anyway now I am ha ha. Anyway, Yeah, you

750
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: get to these robots that look kind of human, but

751
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: they're not quite right, and that definitely gives a coming

752
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: un settling feeling. The example, I always hear that this

753
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:43,799
Speaker 1: isn't robots, this is computer generated uh imagery? Is the

754
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 1: film Polar Express? Oh yeah, the when the when the

755
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:51,360
Speaker 1: trailers came out for the Polar Expressed movie. The animated

756
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 1: models looked very lifelike, but the eyes were not quite

757
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: right and kind of gave the sort of deadlights kind

758
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 1: of thing that you get a little creepy. Now, as

759
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 1: as we get better and better at that, there may

760
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: be a time where we do bridge that gap, we

761
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 1: get that that David from Prometheus kind of thing where

762
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:12,280
Speaker 1: all robots look like Michael fast Spender. And that's pretty

763
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 1: much okay. I was thinking back to AI personally, but

764
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:19,879
Speaker 1: because I want my robots like Jude Law, that's entirely fair.

765
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:22,799
Speaker 1: We're allowed to disagree on Okay, all right, I'm glad.

766
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 1: I'm glad we've reached that that accord. Excellent, We've we've

767
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: kind of covered the whole topic here. The future of

768
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 1: domestic robots. I think more likely likely than not, we're

769
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: going to see more uh specification type robots, you know,

770
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: robots made for specific use. Um. It will still be

771
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: quite a while before we get robots that can be

772
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: general purpose domestic robots, especially the humanoid ones. I think

773
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: that's easily more than a decade away, just because the

774
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 1: the stuff that we could do now is incredible, but

775
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:58,320
Speaker 1: it requires so much computing horsepower and such a huge

776
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:01,399
Speaker 1: support system around it. It's not feasible for them. Yeah,

777
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: the hardware is kind of getting their hardware is cheap

778
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:06,879
Speaker 1: enough these days that that I think that that part

779
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: is on the feasible end. But it's really the software

780
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: that we do not have the capacity yet to know

781
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 1: to run the programs necessary. Yeah. So I mean if

782
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: you if you had a supercomputer in your home that

783
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: could run the robot for you, so that the robot

784
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: would not have to carry around its own superhuman robot brain,

785
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: that might help. But I don't know a lot of

786
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 1: people who have supercomputers, you know, just stored away and

787
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: there their gaming room or whatever. Not. Not too many

788
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 1: of us, Nope, I definitely do not number among them.

789
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:39,240
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's kind of the low down on domestic

790
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: robots as they stand now and how they may be

791
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: in the future. I would love to see robots that

792
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 1: come out that have this sort of adaptability, like the

793
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,359
Speaker 1: kind of stuff that Willow Garage is walking working on.

794
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: Where you've got these robots that you know, depending upon

795
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 1: what apps you download, they can do different stuff. That's

796
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:58,879
Speaker 1: a that's an amazing idea. Yeah, that's wonderful. Um, whether

797
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 1: or not we ever see that to a point where

798
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 1: in our lifetimes that's a consumer thing that's affordable and reasonable,

799
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:06,799
Speaker 1: you know, where it's not just the Bill Gates is

800
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 1: of the world. Who can afford one? Um? Yeah, I

801
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 1: don't know. We'll have to see. I certainly hope the

802
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: day comes, because those floors ain't cleaning themselves, you know,

803
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: they are not. I got a pile of people outside

804
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: my house, so I need to get rid of robo.

805
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: Would be good for that. All right, Well, if you

806
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: guys have any topics you would like us to discuss

807
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: in future episodes of tech Stuff, please let us know.

808
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: You can write us our email addresses tech Stuff at

809
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:35,319
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com, or drop us a little line over

810
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 1: at Facebook or Twitter or handle with both of those

811
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: as text stuff. Hs W and Lauren and I will

812
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this

813
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics because it staff works dot

814
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: com