14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's co-founder and currently technical adviser Bill Gates expects robots to become a common thing in approximately 30 years from now, as technology companies and organizations continue to invest millions of dollars in developing projects that would help robots become “more personal.”
The Redmond-based software firm, which in its turn developed a personal assistant called Cortana that is currently available on phones and will soon debut on PCs and tablets, is one of the companies that are investing in this field through its Microsoft Research division, and Bill Gates appears to be one of the main figures backing such a project.
In a recent Reddit AMA, Gates predicted that robots would be here in about 30 years, explaining that making them see and move easily is the biggest challenge right now.
“There will be more progress in the next 30 years than ever. Even in the next 10 problems like vision and speech understanding and translation will be very good. Mechanical robot tasks like picking fruit or moving a hospital patient will be solved. Once computers/robots get to a level of capability where seeing and moving is easy for them then they will be used very extensively,” he said.
“I, Robot” getting real
Basically, Gates suggests that our lives could change in a way that we could all see in the famous “I, Robot” movie directed by Alex Proyas, which debuted in 2004. Leaving the plot aside, the movie envisions a world where robots help human beings do anything from cooking to cleaning and driving their cars.
Strangely enough, the movie takes place in year 2035, which seems to more or less match Bill Gates' prediction that robots would become a common part of our lives in 20 to 30 years from today.
Microsoft Research has already created “personal robots”
Bill Gates, who also revealed that he was working on a “Personal Agent” at Microsoft, which might or might not be an evolved version of Cortana, could actually base his assumptions on the work that's currently being done within the company's Research division.
In a post on the Microsoft Research page, Microsoft briefly talks about what could be an already advanced personal robot capable of performing some of the things Bill Gates talked about.
Here's and excerpt from the post:
“When you arrive on the third floor, a cute, humanoid robot makes eye contact, senses your interest in getting assistance, and cheerfully asks, ‘Do you need directions?’ You tell him you’re looking for Eric, and the robot gives you the office number and directions, gesturing with his arms and hands to explain the turns and twists of the path to Eric’s office.”
As part of its struggle to become more relevant and continue innovating, Microsoft could be one of the companies trying to bring robots in our lives, so the next 20 to 30 years could introduce several new projects in this regard created by the continuously changing software firm.