Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

examination, there is less than meets the eye. Certainly, tremendous breakthroughs have been made in the last decade, but things have to be put into perspective.
    The Predator, a 27-foot drone that fires deadly missiles at terroristsfrom the sky, is controlled by a human with a joystick. A human, most likely a young veteran of video games, sits comfortably behind a computer screen and selects the targets. The human, not the Predator, is calling the shots. And the cars that drive themselves are not making independent decisions as they scan the horizon and turn the steering wheel; they are following a GPS map stored in their memory. So the nightmare of fully autonomous, conscious, and murderous robots is still in the distant future.
    Not surprisingly, although the media hyped some of the more sensational predictions made at the Asilomar conference, most of the working scientists doing the day-to-day research in artificial intelligence were much more reserved and cautious. When asked when the machines will become as smart as us, the scientists had a surprising variety of answers, ranging from 20 to 1,000 years.
    So we have to differentiate between two types of robots. The first is remote-controlled by a human or programmed and pre-scripted like a tape recorder to follow precise instructions. These robots already exist and generate headlines. They are slowly entering our homes and also the battlefield. But without a human making the decisions, they are largely useless pieces of junk. So these robots should not be confused with the second type, which is truly autonomous, the kind that can think for itself and requires no input from humans. It is these autonomous robots that have eluded scientists for the past half century.
    ASIMO THE ROBOT
    AI researchers often point to Honda’s robot called ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) as a graphic demonstration of the revolutionary advances made in robotics. It is 4 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 119 pounds, and resembles a young boy with a black-visored helmet and a backpack. ASIMO, in fact, is remarkable: it can realistically walk, run, climb stairs, and talk. It can wander around rooms, pick up cups and trays, respond to some simple commands, and even recognize some faces. It even has a large vocabulary and can speak in different languages. ASIMO is the result of twenty years of intense work by scores of Honda scientists, who have produced a marvel of engineering.
    On two separate occasions, I have had the privilege of personally interacting with ASIMO at conferences, when hosting science specials for BBC/Discovery. When I shook its hand, it responded in an entirely humanlike way. When I waved to it, it waved right back. And when I asked it to fetch me some juice, it turned around and walked toward the refreshment table with eerily human motions. Indeed, ASIMO is so lifelike that when it talked, I half expected the robot to take off its helmet and reveal the boy who was cleverly hidden inside. It can even dance better than I can.
    At first, it seems as if ASIMO is intelligent, capable of responding to human commands, holding a conversation, and walking around a room. Actually, the reality is quite different. When I interacted with ASIMO in front of the TV camera, every motion, every nuance was carefully scripted. In fact, it took about three hours to film a simple five-minute scene with ASIMO. And even that required a team of ASIMO handlers who were furiously reprogramming the robot on their laptops after we filmed every scene. Although ASIMO talks to you in different languages, it is actually a tape recorder playing recorded messages. It simply parrots what is programmed by a human. Although ASIMO becomes more sophisticated every year, it is incapable of independent thought. Every word, every gesture, every step has to be carefully rehearsed by ASIMO’s handlers.
    Afterward, I had a candid talk with one of ASIMO’s inventors, and he admitted that ASIMO, despite its remarkably humanlike motions and actions, has the intelligence of an insect. Most of its motions have to be carefully programmed ahead of time. It can walk in a totally lifelike way, but its path has to be carefully programmed or it will stumble over the furniture, since it cannot really recognize objects around the room.
    By comparison, even a cockroach can recognize objects, scurry around obstacles, look for food and mates, evade predators, plot complex escape routes, hide among the shadows, and disappear