A Chicken In Every Pot, A Robot In Every Home

Palm Addict writes "The New York Times report that "South Korea, the world's most wired country, is rushing to turn what sounds like science fiction into everyday life. The government, which succeeded in getting broadband Internet into 72 percent of all households in the last half decade, has marshaled an army of scientists and business leaders to make robots full members of society.""

Comments

Roomba

[mccalli]

How timely. I bought my first home robot on Saturday, a Roomba vacuuming robot. It's working superbly, and am very happy with the frankly mindless job its doing having been transferred from either myself or my wife and over to a machine instead.

What I find interesting is that I have three kids, the eldest being four. They're going to grow up in a house where it's not considered unusual to have a robot pootling about the place doing domestic chores, whereas to my generation (I'm 34) that's still a "hey, cool!" thing. Nobody says "hey cool, you've got a washing machine!" anymore, at least no-one in the developed world (I'm in the UK).

I'm hoping that the Roomba is just the start of a number of domestic robots. I wouldn't mind one that could wash windows for example, both internal and external. Or a polishing robot. Or a mail-gaethering robot*, or preferable one robot capapble of doing all of it.

I would imaginethat by the time my kids are 34, domestic robots will be so common that even the phraseology will seem absolete. Sort of like your granny talking about the 'wireless', meaning something utterly different to what you mean by the wireless. They'd just be part of the normal experience of daily life. By getting kids used to the idea that there's nothing special about having a robot, such a day is hastened. And my floors get cleaned as well.

Cheers,
Ian
(*Forget the mail-gathering robot from the Hitchhiker's adventure game. I know about the mail-gathering robot from the Hitchhiker's adventure game. Damned babel fish machine...)