Robotics

Robotics is the science of building, designing, and creating artificial life forms. During the 20th century, robotics was very popular within popular culture in the United States. It was theorized early on that robots would soon be in every home and that they would perform many tasks currently performed by humans. It has proved much more difficult to replicate the complexities of the human brain than early pioneers had thought it would be.

Recent (as of 2007) robotics efforts have largely been focused on toys: the Sony Aibo, Wowee's Robosapien, Roboraptor, and Robosapien V2, and the as-yet un-released Pleo. Robots are also used to great effect in industrial manufacturing plants for automated tasks.

Robots have been featured in literature and movies. The most significant works were written by Asimov, who coined the Three Laws. Asimov's work has been referenced in the movies Bicentennial Man, Artificial Intelligence, and I, Robot. While many other movies have featured robots, these movies make specific reference to the Three Laws.

It is theorized by some futurists (such as Ray Kurzweil) that individual computers will surprass the computational capabilities of a single human brain by 2020 or 2025. Robotics as a science is thus likely to become more popular in the coming years.