While the human-like robots of science fiction have created unrealistic perceptions and expectations of actual robots, Bill Smart, a roboticist at Missouri’s Washington University, thinks such misconceptions could nevertheless be helpful in robot design.
Smart thinks those raised expectations were down to the impact of unrealistically human-like robots in movies and books. “People don’t really know what they are. C-3PO in Star Wars is very humanlike, intelligent and capable, but real robots are not like that at all.” Instead of just forcing people to alter their expectations, Smart thinks it makes sense to study how people’s ideas about robots are influenced by fiction. That knowledge could be used to design robots that make the most of those expectations.” My real concern is to get people and robots to play together nicely,” says Smart.
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