When do you think they'll come?

PsychoKirby · Post by **PsychoKirby** » Mon May 25, 2009 6:36 am

Looking from a realistic perspective, when do you think companionship robots will become a reality?

I'm just curious what everyone's opinion on the matter is. If you feel you need to explain your choice more, by all means do so.

As for me, I believe creating one would be difficult, but not too much. I've been reading "The Singularity Is Near" lately, and I'd put myself in the 11-20 camp.

ehy · Post by **ehy** » Mon May 25, 2009 6:47 am

At this point, I don't think the technology is out of reach. We don't have it today, of course, but if a major corporation with deep pockets were to put as much money into designing androids as they do into designing more fuel-efficient cars and cell phones with more features, I think they could have something worth buying in ten years or less. But I don't think any corporation is doing that today.

So I think it will happen about ten years after some visionary in the right position of power starts seriously trying to make it happen. That could happen tomorrow, or it could take a hundred years.

andoroido · Post by **andoroido** » Mon May 25, 2009 10:32 am

many of the elements are there, except the A.I., or even a simulated A.I. that can chat with you for 5 minutes.

So I see it as 2 separate problems.

Building a well-articulated bot that looks and feels mostly human, but is only designed to follow programs (and might even be tethered to a power supply and/or computer) Basically a hyper-Realdoll-bot. Probably to be sold to the very rich, or perhaps in robo-brothels (in Japan of course!)

15 years, main question is will Sony or Honda build it, or will hobbyists and/or the smaller sexdoll companies make it first?
But in the same period, there will probably be the beginning of the spread of anthropomorphic robots, but not with skin, as it is just too impractical and high-maintenance.

The looks and feels mostly human AND acts fairly human AND can walk around on its own?

30 years, because Japan needs to solve its huge labor shortage for its aging society, and is too xenophobic to make up for the shortfall by letting GAIJIN into the country even now, let alone in the numbers needed to take care of all the senior citizens at that point, the government is actually counting on robots to provide the needed labor by then (ten million people's worth of labor)

So that basically decides my retirement plans, stay in Japan and have a sexy robot nurse, or go back to the states and have some surly unionized government employee.

petey · Post by **petey** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:26 pm

I'm kinda hoping we can achieve 'escape velocity'* on life expectancy within that 40 year time frame. Then some of us won't have to worry as much about croaking before the companion robots come online. Because I have a feeling a companion robot that would be recognizable in one of the stories on FC is between 40 and 100 years away. In other words, I think and hope the answer is between choices three and four

*-I think that's a Kurzweil term too, for when life expectancy increases by more than one year, every year.

rabiator · Post by **rabiator** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:34 pm

I put myself in the 21 to 40 year camp, mostly because of the computing requirements for a halfway credible companion bot. The AI would have to be a lot better than what exists now, and projects in computer science always tend to be later than you think.

For the body of the fembot , I think we are a lot closer, and those who only want an animated sexdoll might get their wish within the next 10 years. If some big company is willing to put serious money behind it. But that is not how I understand the question of the poll.

Sthurmovik · Post by **Sthurmovik** » Mon May 25, 2009 3:45 pm

The Beyond Lifetime choice is fairly ambiguous due to people not having the same age

Anyway, if there is any sort of progress on hard AI you will see Fembots appear in Japan within the decade that follows. There demand and population need is there now. Soon after you will see a push for sexbots for replace prostitutes in the rest of the industrialized world.

gmiceo · Post by **gmiceo** » Mon May 25, 2009 10:26 pm

I put myself into the 11 to 20 year camp.

The need already exists. It is coming from Japan. They have already outlined a plan to put medical robots into homes within the next ten years. The need for elderly medical care is urgent right now and only getting worse. It is also the largest global fund going that could actually afford the new technology. America would soon follow a few years after that since they have far to few nurses to take care of their aging baby boomers. Also remember that experimental technology that is released to the media is usually 4 to 7 years behind capability. With so many players developing humanoid robots right now it is far to competitive to show your hand.

However, AI abilities are woefully behind what the engineers are coming up with now. The leaders in the develoment have not gotten together to create a game plan of what a robot should accomplish. Without an advanced end game scenario we won't see companion bot interaction for a while. Also robot and AI developers are keenly aware of the sex industry end. It's a $6 billion a year elephant in the room and that aspect is always being thought of.

Borias · Post by **Borias** » Tue May 26, 2009 8:14 am

Stephaniebot · Post by **Stephaniebot** » Tue May 26, 2009 11:10 am

I love it as a robot outfit to wear

jak · Post by **jak** » Wed May 27, 2009 2:26 pm

[POST REMOVED]

A.N.N. · Post by **A.N.N.** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:19 pm

I think most people have addressed this, in that the answer depends on what our expectations are.

I think something in the Dyson Institute level of sophistication (not even counting the mind transfer) won't be available for at least 30 years, maybe more like 50, and it may still be too expensive for typical consumers.

Something on the low end however, such as the aformentioned Hyper-Realdoll types will likely be around within 10-20 years. Just the advances in prosthetics and the Japanese drive on robots and fembots has pushed the basic engineering technology a great deal in the last 10 years.

Sadly, we basically have most of the tech for a fembot body today, but no fembots are made. Power and complex motor control are the only real engineering problems. There just isn't enough demand to drive the cost down and quickly resolve those last bits. On the other hand, full AI is the biggest problem. We dont' even have a good grasp of what it really is yet, so that won't be solved anytime soon. Some thought we were close in the 50s, and here we are today with only minor advances in AI.

PsychoKirby · Post by **PsychoKirby** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:19 pm

jak wrote:However a true companion robot, that could actually act as an emotional partner would seem much farther off than that.

Now that I think about it, that's something I failed to specify. We could be talking about anything from a very simple sexbot to a complex companionship machine. That's another important question.