Robots

Robotics is the science of creating artificial intelligence. From the simplest of automated machines to the most complex “real” transformers, robots are more ubiquitious than you might imagine.

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The android known as FEDOR used pistols to display its decision making and dexterity, officials said, not as a preview of robot warfare.

By Patrick J. Kiger

A new application called Statcheck is bringing some academics a lot closer to AI. Not everyone's a fan.

By Kate Kershner

What are the benefits of growing living tissue in a lab and fusing it to a robotic body? This Fw:Thinking video explores our cyborg future.

By Laurie L. Dove

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A robot to simulate mudskipper locomotion gives scientists a look into the success of the first land vertebrate ancestors, and points to our future on other planets.

By Jesslyn Shields

We've taught the machines to make decisions, but we haven't been paying as much attention to how and why they're learning.

By Patrick J. Kiger

The serpentine qualities of snakes are the inspiration for a new type of robotic, interplanetary probe. Find out how snakebots will explore other worlds.

By Kevin Bonsor

A female Android designed to look like a 20-something Korean woman is capable of making facial expressions and holding a simple conversation.

By Cameron Lawrence

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If we're ever going to live in a world in which machines behave like people, we humans have some teaching to do. But as this writing robot attests, we're not as far away as you might think.

By William Harris

We think of robots as modern inventions, or maybe even retro creations meant to realize futuristic visions. But automata go back – way back – into history.

By Nathan Chandler

A new robot is on the market that celebrates all things dinosaurs. Based on a Camarasaurus, Pleo goes through different stages of life -- hatching, infancy, adulthood -- just as a real dinosaur would.

By Tracy V. Wilson

Created for social purposes, it’s meant to act as a virtual presence, helping keep far-off relatives and late-working parents connected to their families. What is it? A robot called the ConnectR.

By Josh Clark

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Robot armies could soon account for up to one third of all vehicles currently in service. Learn about robot armies and robot army development.

By Jonathan Strickland

It may seem like a strange idea, but one British researcher believes that by 2050, robots and humans will be able to marry legally in the United States. What social implications might this strange-sounding phenomenon have?

By Josh Clark

AI already can outperform humans in some narrow domains, but in the future AI may go inside the human brain to enhance intellectual capabilities, turning users into human-machine hybrids.

By Patrick J. Kiger

A hospital stay can be a stressful experience for anybody, and especially for a child. But a smiling new robot named Robin plays games, tells stories and comforts children in need of a friend.

By Jesslyn Shields

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Many people worry that drones will invade their privacy, though experts say the fear is greater than the actual threat.

By Patrick J. Kiger

Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi masterpiece '2001: A Space Odyssey' premiered 50 years ago, and it got a lot of things right. But what about HAL? How close are we to those kinds of capabilities?

By Oisin Curran

Well, heck yeah, we can, and we have. Let's take a look.

By Robert Lamb

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And someday soft-bodied bots like this could slither in and out of your belly and revolutionize biomedical technology.

By Robert Lamb

Could a computer chip implanted in our brains make the necessity of actually learning anything, like a language, obsolete because knowledge will be available for streaming 24/7?

By Patrick J. Kiger

Computer-generated artificial celebrities, created with cutting-edge technology, have become some of the hottest social media stars on the planet, selling everything from insurance to perfume.

By Patrick J. Kiger

Is ChatGPT the end of education as we know it, or just the beginning?

By Jesslyn Shields

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Maillardet's Automaton, built around 1800, can write poems and draw pictures and was a precursor to today's sophisticated robots.

By Patrick J. Kiger

A Google engineer made headlines for claiming that an AI called LaMDA had become sentient or conscious. While many AI scientists disagreed, what would it take for an AI to ever become sentient?

By Chris Pollette