October 22, 2004
The robot census
It's fall. And you know what that means. Time for colorful leaves, crisp air -- and, of course, the United Nations' annual census of the world's robot population.
Words fail to express my unbridled delight that global civil servants actually spend their time collating this information. According a Wired News story on the census, there are now 607,000 "automated domestic robots" out there, mostly robot lawnmowers and Roombatic vacuum cleaners. The UN predicts that by the end of 2007, there'll be a remarkable 4.1 million domestic robots.
I think we should herd 'em all into one part of the US and make it an official state. If you want more info, you can check out the UN's official robot-census site, which includes such superb dinner-conversation trivia as:
Almost 20,000 robots in Spain -- the robot density in Spain is now higher than in France.
Zut alors. By the way, that picture above? It's a painting by my friend El Rey, who frequently does robot-based artwork, and its title is "I, For One, Welcome Our Robot Overlords". I think it's sold, but his site is replete with other robot art.
(Thanks to Slashdot for this one!)
Posted by Clive Thompson at October 22, 2004 02:04 AM
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So, what constitues a robot. Mobility?
i just bought a painting by el rey... :)
I missread the heading of this piece as The Robot Consensus, and thought to myself "uh-oh".
April, congrats! I have five el rey paintings myself.
Joel, a very good question. Mobility, I actually think not, partly because I tend to refer to software chatbots as robots, and they have no moving parts at all.
Daniel: Heh.
any word on how many are flesh eating robots
I think if we can adress a machine as a thou, we call it a robot. If a machine is anthropomorphic, its a robot. The question is, what is a robot?
"Flesh-eating robots" would be a good category to have in that census, I quite agree.
My definition of a robot, personally, is "can it bring you a beer?"
Or will it drink my beer?
Or will it drink my beer?
Or will it drink my beer?
Or will it drink his beer?
