Color me confused. After years of being told not to associate the word “robots” with "Terminator"-type androids, recent news is chock-full of reports of humanoid robots running half marathons or performing dances and other gymnastic maneuvers.
Not only do I have to redraw my mental image of those devices — I’d gotten comfortable with Robot from the 1960s TV show, “Lost in Space" — but there is also news that robots can now build themselves.
There is good reason to be scared — or at least concerned — but as usual, it’s not what you think. Robotics is another of the critical emerging technologies, mastery of which will be central to 21st-century economic leadership. In combination with artificial intelligence, robotics can, and likely will, reshape industrial production on a paradigm-shifting scale. The next industrial revolution will proceed in the footsteps of its robotic participants.
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