The robot uprising is coming. Prepare yourself!! Well, not quite yet and not in the manner you were expecting. I am talking about advanced toy robots powered by AI that are slowly becoming more visible in homes.

Robots already work in our factories and at other work places that require heavy lifting or precision execution of tasks. Our homes though have been devoid of them, mainly because the kind of sophistication that is required to become an artificial home companion/helper is still years away.

That is because such a robot has to be built for more of a general use case, capable of performing a multitude of tasks, each varying in their degree of complexity. A true general purpose robot is probably more than a decade away.

That is why today, the robots that we do have for homes are built for specialised purposes. For example, we see all kinds of smart robots for kids that help them learn and also serve as toys.

Emotional Attachment With Robots

One thing that is talked about a lot when it comes to the future of highly advanced robots and their relationship with humans, is whether or not humans will develop emotional attachments with their robots. It seems obvious though because we get attached to all sorts of things, not just people.

People are attached to their cars, houses, devices, or any other number of things and so it is easy to imagine how they could become emotionally attached to a robot, given that the robots of the future will be very human like, both in their looks and the way they function.

We are already witnessing some evidence of that with kids who use toy robots today. Kids are increasingly looking at robots as friends rather than just toys which seems like normal behaviour but scientists warn that this could lead to all sorts of confusion and troubles down the road, with respect to how these kids grow up and how they develop certain attitudes towards robots and technology at a whole.

We are definitely venturing into new territory here and how we act now might serve as a template for how we are supposed to interact with robots of the future. We have to keep in mind all the negatives that might arise when robots become as common as smartphones are today and virtually everyone has their own.