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The word "robot" is first used in 1921 by Czech playwrite Karel Capek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). The play involves a factory that builds artificial people to be servants for humans. In 1926, Metropolis becomes the first movie to portray a humanoid robot on screen.
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William Grey Walter developed what are considered the first electronic autonomous robots called machina speculatrix.
The turtle-like robots were named Elmer and Elsie and were capable of way-finding to reach a charging station when their battery levels were low. -
The three robotic laws were made in 1942 in a story "Runaround" made by Isaac Asimov. although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories. The Three Laws are:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. -
Artificial neural networks (based on the neural networks in the human brain) are computing systems designed to simulate the way the human brain processes information.
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The Turing test, developed by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses.
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Norman Heroux, George Devol and Joe Engleberger designed and marketed the first programmable robot arm - called Unimate - and sold it to General Motors in 1960. This paved the way for industrial robots to complete repetitive, difficult or dangerous tasks.
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ELIZA was one of the first of these, created by a professor at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory between the years 1964 and 1966. The programme could carry out a conversation via text by following a 'script' that directed it on how to respond.
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"Shakey" the robot was designed by the Stanford Research Institute between 1966 and 1972 and was a landmark in robotics due to its blending of hardware and software so that it could perceive its surroundings.
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NASA used cutting edge computing and robotics technology to land humans on the moon for the first time in 1969.
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Self-driving cars are still not mainstream today, so it might be surprising to learn that the fist autonomous car took itself for a drive in 1986. The Mercedes-Benz van incorporated mirrors and sensors and was able to drive successfully on empty streets.
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Honda releases ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility), its iconic humanoid robot designed to be a personal assistant that can understand voice commands, gestures and engage with its surroundings.
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On March 15 2016 AlphaGo, an AI system built by UK company DeepMind, defeated the world champion Lee Sedol at the ancient board game Go. This was a major milestone for DeepMind's research into creating artificial intelligence that can 'learn' how to solve problems regardless of the context, unlike Deep Blue which is programmed for a specific use case.
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