Humanoid robots that help with the washing up, laundry and other boring household chores could be available in around five years, a top expert has predicted.
The stuff of science fiction films such as Subservience, in which Megan Fox plays an AI android that completes housework, could soon become reality — minus the inevitable scenes where the robot becomes self-aware and goes rogue.
Professor Pulkit Agrawal, who leads a robotics lab at MIT in Boston, US, said the first household robots would likely be comparable in price to a car, between £15,000 – £40,000.
He added: “Silicon Valley companies are promising this year you can buy a robot, but I think my guess would be more like five to 10 years, at least.
“In the physical world, things just take time to roll out. The technology is progressing, no doubt, but it’s good to be realistic that it will take time to deploy.”
Prof Agrawal and his colleagues are working on perfecting the hand movements of robotic arms which can grip and handle objects without dropping or breaking them.
They are also training robots to carry out tasks in home environments. Humans find it easy to pick up a plate, wash and dry it, and put it away. But for a robot, every kitchen, plate and cupboard layout is different.
Household helpers will likely come in human form because homes are built around the human body, Prof Agrawal said.
He added: “All your cupboards and racks are arranged so a human can reach it. I don’t think humanoid is perfect or optimal, but from a very pragmatic view, given that human houses have been designed for humans, it makes sense to roughly be in that form factor.
“The dream would be a single robot that could do everything such as going around the home making sure your doors are locked, fetching newspapers, doing laundry, putting things in a dishwasher.”
As mechanics and artificial intelligence advance, Prof Agrawal suggested robots could be the next social progression of the same scale as electricity, the internet and cars.
And he believes they could plug workforce shortages as younger generations do not learn as many physical labour skills.
Prof Agrawal, who is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, said: “If you look at the US alone, in the next five years, in manufacturing, there’s going to be a shortage of two million workers.
“People can’t find workers to work. I was talking with one manufacturing plant and they said we cannot assume that a person comes in knowing how to use a screwdriver.
“Part of that is because as children are growing up now, no one is teaching them to do physical things. They are all getting exposed to digital media.
“Maybe a century ago, people would say, ‘Let’s go to a factory and work’. But right now that’s not anyone’s ambition.”
Professor Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is pioneering new forms of artificial intelligence to make robots that are more comfortable in novel situations.
She leads various research projects aiming to create a new type of artificial intelligence that thinks more flexibly, transparently and efficiently.
She said: “I will tell you that household robots are not here just yet, but there is a lot of progress towards making household robots.”
