Living with Robots?

Hello, everyone~!

You might notice that I'm a kind of book junkie by taking a look at my profile on this blog, and I'll be glad to admit that I am. Now I even think that I love reading not only books but also anything printed in Japanese and English. I mean, magazine, newspaper, and articles on the Internet. Many people who are older than me have kept saying that young people in Japan don't read books for years. I always feel sad when I hear them say the thing like this because I think it definitely is a misunderstanding that doesn't need to be popular! :(

And today, I looked through the website of the famous magazine, Newsweek. I bookmarked the website because I like the website better than the website of TIME magazine. I like the way they write each article and most importantly, it's always easy for me to read. So, I just can't help but spend much time taking a look at the articles that interest me! I'd like to share some of them with you here. ^^

"Homemade Robots"
I found it interesting to read the article because I've been thinking about what it would be like to live with robots since I'd seen a movie called "i, Robot". (Have you seen it? If you haven't, I encourage you to check it out!) The movie I've seen recently, "Transformers"(Remember I talked about this on the previous post?) has inspired me to think about living with robots more. Technically speaking, we've actually lived with robots already in terms of assembly lines.

However, the same thing doesn't seem to happen soon at home, right? The reasons why it's taken so long to make that happen are that it would definitely cost you a lot, and that it would be difficult to fix problems by users who wouldn't be familiar with mechanical things. In this article, the writer talks about an experiment that might bring us one step closer to our goal. The main purpose of the experiment is to create "a series of build-it-yourself robots". According to the article, it'll be easy for everyone to make. Moreover, the price of a kit will be cheap enough for almost everyone to buy.

It also talks about their approach to develop robot's self-expression ability for communicating with humans. I've seen several robots on TV that walked with two legs and read our facial expressions before, like the robot called "ASIMO". (Do you know him? You can see him on the website) I've also seen some of them respond to remarks made by humans. Every time I see a footage like these, it gives me a message from robots that "I can understand you." However, that's not what I expect to see. :( What I want to see in the future is communicating with each other evenly. Is that too much that I'm asking for? Hahaha... It also makes me wonder if we ever need to make that happen in order to live with comfort because living in this world is never really easy and getting harder and harder, don't you think? But at the same time, that's something that enriches our lives. ^^ So, we might have to think about how we live while trying to make a robot!

Alright, I hope you enjoy reading the article! ^^
That's all for today.

See you soon~!