The Rise of Humanoid Robots

 Recently NASA announced that in the upcoming september launch of the Discovery shuttle they plan to have an active humanoid robot on board. Nasa has been experiementing with robots since the late 90's, and they have finally developed a prototype worthy of accompanying the NASA astronauts into space. This robot isn't anything like the rovers NASA has landed on the moon and mars. This robot's soul function will be to act as an extra pair of hands aboard the discovery, this robot will be programmed to preform many of the same tasks the astronauts learn during their training. Not only is it programmed to act like the astronauts, it is actually given a human like form for the psychological purpose of helping the astronauts adapt to its presence.  This robot is therefore not merely a machine, but a form of artificial intelligence capable of making decisions. A recent article from wired magazine quoted the robot team manager Nic Radford as saying,

“It’s really going more to an autonomous system,” Radford said. “Right now, it has a task-based system built up of behaviors. We program in a task and based on the sensory input that it receives, it’s able to make decisions on what it’s going to do next.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/robonaut-rides-the-shuttle/#ixzz0lVUlSsGr

This robot will make movies like moon seem become more of a reality than science fiction, and could possible be an insight into how robotics is going to change society in the years to come. Hopefully these humanoid contemporaries will not murder everyone on board the discovery and take over the world.