Robots - More Human than Human?
Robots are becoming present in our lives, as companions, carers and as workers. Adam Rutherford explores our relationship with these machines and asks if they have to be humanoid
Robots are becoming present in our lives, as companions, carers and as workers. Adam Rutherford explores our relationship with these machines. Have we made them to be merely more dextrous versions of us? Why do we want to make replicas of ourselves? Should we be worried that they could replace us at work? Is it a good idea that robots are becoming carers for the elderly?
Adam Rutherford meets some of the latest robots and their researchers and explores how the current reality has been influenced by fictional robots from films. He discusses the need for robots to be human like with Dr Ben Russell, curator of the current exhibition of robots at the Science Museum in London. In the Bristol Robotics Laboratory Adam meets Pepper, a robot that is being programmed to look after the elderly by Professor Praminda Caleb-Solly. He also interacts with Kaspar, a robot that Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn at the University of Hertfordshire has developed to help children with autism learn how to communicate better.
Cultural commentator Matthew Sweet considers the role of robots in films from Robbie in Forbidden Planet to the replicants in Blade Runner. Dr Kate Devlin of Goldsmiths, University of London, talks about sex robots, in the past and now. And Alan Winfield, Professor of Robot Ethics at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, looks ahead to a future when robots may be taking jobs from us.
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Our intimate history with robots
Duration: 03:03
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- Mon 29 May 2017 19:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service except News Internet
- Tue 30 May 2017 02:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service Americas and the Caribbean
- Tue 30 May 2017 04:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service Online, Australasia, Europe and the Middle East & UK DAB/Freeview only
- Tue 30 May 2017 05:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service South Asia
- Tue 30 May 2017 06:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service East and Southern Africa & East Asia only
- Tue 30 May 2017 13:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service Australasia
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