With modern robot companions, the thought process is to develop cognitive robots with the only purpose in life - to serve humans as an assistant or companion. Once perfected, the robots will have the ability to learn new tasks and skills in an open-needed manner and grow while interacting and co-operating with humans.
I think that AI/robotics is still in its infancy. We are decades away from a fully functioning AI like those made popular by Hollywood. Neural networks and quantum computing are technologies that may pave the way, but it’s still some way off. Then there is the moral dilemmas to consider, i.e. is an AI a person in law? And of course we have to avoid the robot uprising! There have been many films/books that have dealt with these themes. (Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill is a great example)
It is a very interesting subject though. Let’s hope we don’t build Skynet!
Thanks for your comment @tonyd
I agree; we are far from having Ai/robots as advanced as what we see in movies. Several moral dilemmas are debatable or even anticipated… (My first thought when you mentioned
was of Sophia the robot.
Films such as 2001 Space Odyssey or I, Robot (or the Westworld series) have similar themes that manifest the fear of many, such as, the idea that creations (robots/ai) can turn against their creators (humans).