I had a similar thought the other day while using an automated paper towel dispenser. "Isn't this primitive robot?" Yet, I'd never really thought to apply the term "robot." It'll be interesting to watch the evolution from dumb/single-purpose robots to smarter/multi-purpose ones.
If that's a primitive robot, we've had primitive robots since the first push-button elevator or automatic door, many decades ago.
It's like the defining-down of AI. Proponents promised strong AI Real Soon Now for decades; now they say that we're just being unfair if we don't count email filters as "AI".
There's a (probably apocryphal?) story of a professor asking his students to design a robot to wash dishes. Most came up with something along the lines of Rosie from the Jetsons; only one offered the 'right' answer which was something along the lines of "why waste time designing when I can buy one from the appliance section at Sears?"
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I had a similar thought the other day while using an automated paper towel dispenser. "Isn't this primitive robot?" Yet, I'd never really thought to apply the term "robot." It'll be interesting to watch the evolution from dumb/single-purpose robots to smarter/multi-purpose ones.
If that's a primitive robot, we've had primitive robots since the first push-button elevator or automatic door, many decades ago.
It's like the defining-down of AI. Proponents promised strong AI Real Soon Now for decades; now they say that we're just being unfair if we don't count email filters as "AI".
There's a (probably apocryphal?) story of a professor asking his students to design a robot to wash dishes. Most came up with something along the lines of Rosie from the Jetsons; only one offered the 'right' answer which was something along the lines of "why waste time designing when I can buy one from the appliance section at Sears?"