How Soon to Commander Data?

Of all the great ideas of science fiction our society seems to be working the fastest towards making stories about robots come true.  How soon will it be before we have a Commander Data?  We are still in the early stages of engineering a SF robot but yesterday I saw a film that made me think things are leaping ahead:

If you have been following the development of robots you will know this is a major advancement over what robot designers were doing just a few years ago.  Before robots always looked like struggling machines.  This video gives the feeling that the machine is part animal because it mimics dog like qualities.  It’s just a hint, but enough of a hint that I felt sorry for the machine when they kicked it.

Another film that was sent to me yesterday also suggests that designers, this time an artist, are finding their way closer to natural designs for their mechanical creations.

And yet a third robotic story crossed my path yesterday, “Japan Experimenting with Artificial Intelligence as Part of Daily Life.”  This is all without going to Google and doing research on the topic.  I just remembered I also started reading a F&SF story last night “Five Thrillers” by Robert Reed that mentions robots.  And I watched an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and if I think hard I could probably remember some more instances of the topic of robots coming into my life yesterday.  My friends and I have been wishing for robots to be developed so we’ll have machines to help us when we get old.

Robots are happening.  Start paying attention to how often you see them mentioned.

If you want to see more videos of robots jump on over to YouTube because they have loads of them. Japan seems hellbent on creating a trade show cutie. I hope they don’t put out all those bikini professionals we see marketing high tech goods out of a job.

Jim