"God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."
—Genesis 1:27
Did God make man in his image, or did mankind make God in its image? Whichever side you come down on, it's a lot easier to observe that humans have been trying to make robots a that look us for quite a while. The ability to recreate the human shape, movement, and ultimately, intelligence has occupied technologists for the last century—longer if you include the alchemical, metaphysical, and purely fictional attempts. What is Frankenstein's monster, if not a kind of biological robot? Our ability to create walking, talking robots has evolved pretty far, but the next step may not be toward a more human robot. The most effective robots may not look like humans at all.
The term robot is credited to Josef Capek, who coined it in his 1928 play "R.U.R." The word derives from the Slavic word robota, which means "forced laborer," and the play explores the creation of soulless, mindless workers meant to replace human laborers. Since then, we've seen countless humanoid robots created in fiction. Maria of the movie Metropolis predates the term "robot" by a year, but there's little doubt that Maria is a robot.
Since then, science fiction has revealed a long series of humanoid robots: Data from Star Trek: Next Generation, The T800 from The Terminator, and even the Major Motoko Kusanagi, who will be shooting up theaters near you soon in Ghost in the Shell.
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Science and technology have delivered plenty of real-life humanoid robots as well. Also in 1928, a robot named Eric was put on display by the Society of Model Engineers in London. Eric couldn't walk, but he gave a nice speech and could move his arms around via remote control. Honda's Asimo (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) was introduced in 2000 and has been improving ever since. Asimo is only 4'3", but it's generally regarded as the most advanced two-legged robot on the market. Though you may not be able to pick up Asimo at Best Buy, you can lease one from Honda for just $150,000 a month.
SoftBank's Pepper robot is rolling out even faster, with currently more than 10,000 out in the world. Pepper helps humans do everything from shopping for electronics in Santa Monica to buying pizza in Singapore.
But what if we don't anthropomorphize our robots? After all, nature has a lot more models than the bipedal human, and many non-human creatures specialize in certain kinds of efficient movement that people couldn't hope to emulate—but robots can. Fish, snakes, bats, and even squirrels have a lot to offer the world of robotics. And that's when things start to get interesting.
In this month's cover story Michelle Z. Donahue takes a look at what future robots will look like. The short answer: Most of them won't look like us.
Read all about the rise of the biobots, along with reviews, news, and how-tos in the April issue of the PC Magazine Digital Edition, available now via Apple iTunes.