Lieven Scheire \\ Robots

The humanoid: a robot with arms and legs that has the form of a human. For hundreds of years it has populated our stories and movies. But it will not take much longer before you encounter such a robot in real life: at your work, somewhere on the street, or maybe even at your home. Over the past three years, humanoids have undergone an enormous evolution. Suddenly they have a well-functioning balance system, they can make acrobatic jumps, they navigate through unknown terrain, and they smoothly recognize objects, people, and situations. Why is it going so fast now? Thanks to AI and digital neural networks. The first humanoids are now on the assembly line in factories, they can occasionally be seen at events, and the long-awaited household robot is also currently being fully tested. The coming years are make-or-break for the humanoid. Will it remain a promising technology that just fails to get the final details right? Or will it succeed and will the humanoid suddenly become affordable for whoever wants one? What are the consequences then for the labor market, public space, and our daily life at home? Will there be sports competitions with robots? May humanoids also be deployed militarily? And is it actually a good idea to give AI a body, let alone thousands of bodies? In 'Robots', Lieven Scheire tells about the humanoid robot, its history, its lightning-fast evolution of the past few years, and its promising future. You can doom-think about it, you can hope-think about it, but everything starts with a thorough acquaintance with these wonderful machines.