Prompt's TechBlog

On Saturday night, I turned on the television to watch the opening episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. If you missed it (or didn't fancy it), the programme is a spin-off from the Terminator movies, in which robots have risen up against their human creators. Then, on Sunday evening, I happened to watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica, a television series in which robots have... um... risen up against their human creators.

Clearly we should all be wary of robotics. A world in which our creations have risen up against their human creators isn't one to look forward to. This isn't stopping scientists in Japan, though.

Clearly less influenced by glossy sci-fi television than I am, the Japanese are making great strides in the field of robotics, hoping that one day robots and humans can exist side by side and interact socially. MSN reports that a university laboratory in Tokyo has built a robotic face that can display six expressions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and disgust.

The robot has been named Kansei, or 'sensibility', and is attached to a database of words to which it can respond realistically. For example, when the robot hears the word 'war', it demonstrates disgust and fear (and having just watched Terminator that's quite reassuring), whereas 'love' generates a smile.

The researchers believe that if robots are to exist alongside people, they will need to be able to react to emotions, understand them, or even feel them. This research can be seen as a step towards that goal.

Robots are widely used in Japan, and the country is depending on them to care for an increasing number of elderly people. The government has invested huge amounts of money into robotics projects over the last few years, including $42 million for a humanoid robotics project, and $10 million a year between 2006 and 2010 to develop key robot technologies.

The Japanese government wants one million industrial robots installed by 2025. After that, perhaps we will see robots also used for everyday activities. The Roomba, a vacuum cleaner that can clean a room automatically and without supervision, has been a success in Japan, indicating that consumers could very well accept more robots in the home.

Let's be honest, we're still a long way away from the likes of Robocop, Johnny 5 or Optimus Prime. Even so, the future of the robotics industry is looking pretty good right now. I quite like the idea of having robots round the house to do the chores. Put the rubbish out? Robot will do it. Cook dinner? Robot will do it. Weed the garden? Robot will do it.

Now that's a future we can look forward to. Assuming the robots don't rise up against their human creators...