In 1926 a silent German film called "Metropolis" became the first movie to feature a robot — a female robot at that. You can see her peeking through the second O in ROBOTS on the previous page. Movie robots have progressed since then. Ours are, left to right, Johnny 5, Robby, Gort, Tobor, R2-D2 and C-3PO and the Terminator, far left. And then there are the Stepford Wives, which could lead to a Hollywood-type question that touches on ethics.
By Gary Goettling Photography: Gary Meek
34
W
ould you want your daughter to marry a robot? That's an intriguing, though admittedly extreme, example of the hypothetical questions discussed in a course on robots and society developed by Ron Arkin that he co-teaches with Charles Isbell. A Regents professor in the College of Computing and director of the Mobile Robot Lab, Arkin contends that the next great consumer technology will arrive in the form of personal robots. The innovations will be accompanied by a host of ethical concerns about human-robot interaction, he adds.
Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Spring 2005
Georgia Tech professor Ron Arkin surrounds himself with real robots.