All about Robotics

Of late, I have been accidentally compelled to work in the area of so called robotics. Now as most of us would be,  I  was very excited when I heard the fancy word presuming that I would get to look into the WestWorld side of things.

My excitement was very short lived until I realized that it was an extended version of automation which we can do in the microsoft office world using VBA or right coding the requirements one have in performing a process. What was really unsettling me was the fact that this was being projected as a cutting edge technology that would redefine the world. And these so called robotics " as of today" are way too expensive vis-a-vis a human. It would definitely be a long way before these robotics really scale up in our world of finance. Now the question that was bothering me was, if it all boils down to coding that already exists in the world of finance we are working why cant it be done int he existing world than getting some external patch.

And to join this whole bandwagon, there are quite a few people who think that this is their Nirvana moment and they are the thinktanks behind saving their little worlds. People are abusing this "process level Robotics" and conveniently using as synonymous to AI, Machine Learning, Real real Robotics. My take is the following:

1. In a physical world we are far behind with the concept we all would love to have like the ones in iRobot- a robot that can exhibit the same level of dexterity and movement on two legs like humans.. There are many companies struggling to make a robot walk on a debris, or run through steps, stairs or jump, or drill, or ability to hold things / articles like the humans. It is nevertheless a difficult task to emulate this wonderful machine called human body and replicate the numerous things it can perform.

2. Then comes the aspect of look and feel like humans. We have Erica, the humanoid from Japan which is exceptionally good looking and intelligent robot. However, combining the physical features and the physical skills in something will still have to wait for.

3. And finally comes , the aspect of thinking like humans. Now, here is where we have made lot of progress. Ever since Alan Turing the focus has been tremendously on the abstract side of things than physical. Today, we are at a stage where a machine without much guidance and with less number of simulations can beat a human in a game like Breakout ( google's deepmind AI). Or AIs that can help in medical research to robo advocates to robo wealth management advisory to predictive capabilities like giving a sell side research guidance on the target price ( EMMAAI) to reading movie scripts to forecast the box office success of the movie ( VAULT) to robo directors  to a simple voice based device Alexa that makes me feel empowered. The progress we made is leaps and bounds.

Now whether Singularity is Near or we humans become hybrid or will there be a rise of machines is something we need to wait and watch out for....