It's finally a reality--robots of manageable size and human form can be created for less than a mere $1,000. While I question the usefulness of its severely-limited feature set, we have nonetheless taken another step towards a robotic age. Science fiction authors have written about "robot humans" for decades. No doubt we will benefit immensely from such a creation! I do wonder what social implications this robot will engender, both in the near and the distant future. Will robots (which are computing machines) ever have the same rights as humans? Will they be able to own homes, vote for a president, or marry a loved one? On a more dangerous note, many ask if sophisticated robots in the future will decide that humanity is obsolete. All such questions are valid, and I don't intend any negative connotations for any of them. Rather, I simply submit questions of this nature for consideration by those with the ability to build robot humans.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/25/tech/innovation/inmoov-robot-3d-printing/index.html
I find this interesting as I actually just finished reading "I, Robot". The book made me wonder about these same questions. Specifically, I wondered about the nature of the three laws and how they almost caused more problems than they prevented. The movie version portrays Sonny as being a superior robot because of his ability to decide on his own to follow the three laws. In this same way, I wonder if the "rules" of computers can ever truly be enforced (I refer now to rules concerning ethical dilemmas such as hacking and piracy). In my mind, the only true enforcement of ethical computer behavior must come from our own personal decision to govern ourselves.
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