The robot invasion has truly begun!
With the advancements in AI, Natural Language Processing, Intelligent Personal Assistants (Siri, Cortana, Google Now), and miniaturized computers, we have a very fertile ground for personal robotics.
By personal robotics I mean a merging of the Intelligent Personal Assistant with consumer level robots. Electronic appliances that seem alive with intelligence and personality. The likes of which we've seen in sci-fi for decades. They're here now, and will begin infiltrating our lives as toys, and Personal Assistants that go beyond our smart phones. They'll start small and cute, so we, as humans, are comfortable welcoming them into our homes. As robotics technology and processing power continues to be refined, these robots will become more physically complex. They'll evolve from things that sit on a counter with limited movement, or small bots that can roll around on wheels, to things with appendages. They'll go from fun learning toys and "conversational" assistants, to actually being able to lend a helping hand. I would presume they'll become more humanoid, which won't be weird by that time, because we'll have become comfortable with their cuter and less threatening ancestors.
Here are two examples of what we have now:
Dash and Dot by Wonder Workshop: https://www.makewonder.com/
These are essentially learning toys, that get kids excited about programming... without really realizing they're learning to think like programmers. There's not a lot of "intelligence" built in but they are versatile little robotics platforms that you (or your kids) can program to do almost anything (within their physical capabilities).
Jibo (Coming Soon): https://www.jibo.com/
This is the "smart" one. Though the hardware platform is a bit limited, the AI in this and the conversational interaction it will bring starts to get something akin to a real life R2-D2, in my opinion. You can talk to it and it can do things you ask. It will talk back to you too, and you don't have to understand beeps and whistles. Intelligent Personal Assistants are going to become more conversational and more capable. The original Siri developers are on the forefront of that advancement with Viv. (http://viv.ai/ https://youtu.be/Rblb3sptgpQ)
As a powerful AI like Viv becomes better and more natural to interact with, and robotic platforms become less expensive and more refined, these technologies will converge to bring us insanely advanced "droids" that may take us from R2-D2, to C3PO, to Ava from Ex Machina.... Watch out... you know how that ends. ;)
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I'm not really predicting a robotocalypse or anything. Just want to share a bit of what's here now, and mention that the future will sneak up on you much faster than you expect.
I'm off to buy Dash and Dot to rebuild them as a miniature R2-D2.
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BONUS VIDEO: https://youtu.be/QdQL11uWWcI (ASIMO)