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

among these objects, carefully avoiding them, and learns with each pass. It is equipped with GPS and has two infrared sensors that can detect objects in front of it. It contains three high-power Pentium chips and is connected to a gigabit Ethernet network. We went to a nearby park, where the LAGR robot could roam around various obstacles placed in its path. Every time it went over the course, it got better at avoiding the obstacles.
    One important difference between LAGR and STAIR is that LAGR is specifically designed to learn. Every time LAGR bumps into something, it moves around the object and learns to avoid that object the next time. While STAIR has thousands of images stored in its memory, LAGR has hardly any images in its memory but instead creates a mental map of all the obstacles it meets, and constantly refines that map with each pass. Unlike the driverless car, which is programmed and follows a route set previously by GPS, LAGR moves all by itself, without any instructions from a human. You tell it where to go, and it takes off. Eventually, robots like these may be found on Mars, the battlefield, and in our homes.
    On one hand, I was impressed by the enthusiasm and energy of these researchers. In their hearts, they believe that they are laying the foundation for artificial intelligence, and that their work will one day impact society in ways we can only begin to understand. But from a distance, I could also appreciate how far they have to go. Even cockroaches can identify objects and learn to go around them. We are still at the stage where Mother Nature’s lowliest creatures can outsmart our most intelligent robots.

NEAR FUTURE (PRESENT TO 2030)
    EXPERT SYSTEMS
    Today, many people have simple robots in their homes that can vacuum their carpets. There are also robot security guards patrolling buildings at night, robot guides, and robot factory workers. In 2006, it was estimated that there were 950,000 industrial robots and 3,540,000 service robots working in homes and buildings. But in the coming decades, the field of robotics may blossom in several directions. But these robots won’t look like the ones of science fiction.
    The greatest impact may be felt in what are called expert systems, software programs that have encoded in them the wisdom and experience of a human being. As we saw in the last chapter, one day, we may talk to the Internet on our wall screens and converse with the friendly face of a robodoc or robolawyer.
    This field is called heuristics, that is, following a formal, rule-based system. When we need to plan a vacation, we will talk to the face in the wall screen and give it our preferences for the vacation: how long, where to, which hotels, what price range. The expert system will already know our preferences from past experiences and then contact hotels, airlines, etc., and give us the best options. But instead of talking to it in a chatty, gossipy way, we will have to use a fairly formal, stylized language that it understands. Such a system can rapidly perform any number of useful chores. You just give it orders, and it makes a reservation at a restaurant, checks for the location of stores, orders grocery and takeout, reserves a plane ticket, etc.
    It is precisely because of the advances in heuristics over the past decades that we now have some of the rather simple search engines of today. But they are still crude. It is obvious to everyone that you are dealing with a machine and not a human. In the future, however, robots will become so sophisticated that they will almost appear to be humanlike, operating seamlessly with nuance and sophistication.
    Perhaps the most practical application will be in medical care. For example, at the present time if you feel sick, you may have to wait hours in an emergency room before you see a doctor. In the near future, you may simply go to your wall screen and talk to robodoc. You will be able tochange the face, and even the personality, of the robodoc that you see with the push of a button. The friendly face you see in your wall screen will ask a simple set of questions: How do you feel? Where does it hurt? When did the pain start? How often does it hurt?
    Each time, you will respond by choosing from a simple set of answers. You will answer not by typing on a keyboard but by speaking.
    Each of your answers, in turn, will prompt the next set of questions. After a series of such questions, the robodoc will be able to give you a diagnosis based on the