Would you trust these robots in your kitchen?

July 8th, 2013

Appliance Talk

We love robots here at Appliances Online.  In fact, we may be somewhat obsessed.  After all, a machine that could handle just about any household chore would pretty much be the ultimate appliance.

So why aren’t scientists putting all of their giant-brained thinking powers to work designing the next generation of mechanised servants?

Well, according to recent reports, human being just don’t trust robots, and won’t allow them to handle tasks in their homes.

It makes sense really – seeing something that’s clearly not human attempt to imitate human tasks can be downright creepy.

WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TEA, SARAH CONNOR?

Plus, a steady diet of “robot apocalypse” fiction for the last century or so has given people a lot of pre-concieved fears of androids taking over the world – I suspect that the only reason an intelligent android would embark on a campaign of conquest would be because this was all we expected of it.

Besides, according to Portal 2, robots are at least as trustworthy as humans (i.e. not very)

You could argue that we already trust a lot of robots in the home already, provided you stretch the definition of “robot” to encompass all manner of appliances with “smart” programming and fuzzy logic – effectively a primitive variety of artificial intelligence.

But imagine if you could get smart robots into your home, USING your kitchen’s smart appliances!

Before things get too much like Inception in here, this is what I mean:

James and Rosie are two experimental household robots.  Rosie was developed by the Technical University of Munich, and James by US robotics firm Willow Garage.  Watch as they go through the motions of preparing popcorn on the cooktop and making sandwiches with the help of the toaster:

They’ve also proven fairly adept at making Bavarian breakfasts and pancakes, navigating with the help of motion sensing equipment not dissimilar to that used for controlling selected Smart TVs.

The PR2 robot design used by James does seem to be fairly versatile, as Californian scientists have also put similar ‘bots to work in the laundry:

Other meals you could have served to you by a robot include sushi…

(AAAA HUMAN HAND AAAA)

…and pancakes, prepared on the teppanyaki plate (an accessory available for several different cooking appliances) and ordered using speech recognition technology (much like that seen in selected Smart TVs).

And when your meals are done, Monty from Anybots could load the dishwasher for you.

Of course, having robots look after your every household need is certainly not a new invention.  Check out this old-school ad for a robot-themed coffee machine:

Unfortunately in real life it doesn’t quite measure up to its cartoonish depiction:

At the time of writing, the only household robots that Appliances Online is able to supply you with are various robotic vacuum cleaners, which can not only clean your home under their own guidance, but provide hours of entertainment for curious kittens:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make lunch, using my pathetic human hands…