Popular robots

On television and in the movies there have been a number of robots which have become widely known to a large audience.

We name but a few here, such as the robot in the in the 1960's series "Lost in space", Commander "Data" in the "Star Trek: New generation" series, and R2D2 and C3PO in the Hollywood productions of "Star Wars".

Robots and androids on television and in films
" Danger, Will Robinson!" B9 - The robot from the popular 1960's television series "Lost in space" (c) CBS.	Lt. Data of Star Trek fame. The android that wants to be human. (c) StarTrek.com
C3PO - a protocol droid for interaction between humans and droids. (c) StarWars.com Droid Archive	R2D2 - an astromech droid.  (c) StarWars.com Droid Archive
T he Daleks, robot villains in the immensely popular Dr. Who television series. (c) BBC.	Yul Brynner as the robot gone berserk in the film "Westworld" (c) TCM
"Sonny", the NS5 series robot with feelings from the movie "I, Robot" of the book by Isaac Asimov. (c) Fox.

The early robot popularity reached a peak in the 1950's and early 1960's American movies with robots landing from outer space to invade the Earth or to do the opposite - make friendly contact. Other robots accompanied humans to Mars and other planets in series and films.

 Comic strips featured robots as good-natured and extremely handy companions to have on your side when fighting evil as well as evil robots built by mad scientists bent on destroying cities or the world.

Science fiction writers, most notably Isaac Asimov, made robots a specialty, incorporating them into many of his stories, even accrediting them with the future destiny of mankind as a whole in his "Foundation" series. Isaac Asimov also wrote the three laws of robotics which are to prevent humanoid robots from turning on their masters.

As such the robot has "enjoyed" a reasonably high profile to the general audience with few people in the West not being familiar with this man-made machine.

The fact that we are now entering an age where these robots are becoming a reality makes many of us question the direction robot technology should take.

Whether in books, the movies or in television series, robots have either been portrayed as beneficial to humans or enemies of. As such they are obviously built in the image of their creators, showing much of the same characteristics. Cause to worry? Perhaps. 

Robots in manufacturing

Many robots have been built for manufacturing purposes and can be found in factories around the world.

Japan and the United States lead the world in the development of these robots, generally called industrial robots.

Robots in manufacturing can be divided into three categories, namely 1) material handling, 2) processing operations, and 3) assembly and inspection.

Material handling robots are usually employed in the transport of goods, parts or cargo from one destination to another, most often within the same factory or plant. Automated warehouses are an example of this.

In processing operations robots generally perform a specific task such as spot welding or spray painting. These robots are outfitted with a specialized tool to perform the programmed task.

Assembly line robots are similar to process automatons in that they usually perform a single task in the assembly line process.

Inspection robots are widely used to examine a finished part or product for defects or irregularities, for example, utilizing any number of tools, such as lenses and scanners.

There is some debate whether some of these industrial robots can be called robots. Many are little or no more than machines built to perform a task, such as humanity has been building them for thousands of years and calling them robots is stretching the concept too far.

A common denominator in manufacturing robots is that they perform monotonous or repetitive and often dangerous work involving heavy machinery, industrial pollutants, poisonous chemicals or other hazardous materials.

So, yes, they have taken away jobs of human workers. However, one needs to consider the effects of (heavy) monotonous, repetitive or hazardous work that is done year after year on the human body and mind. In this light, by all means, let machines do the work.