Cool new story in the San Francisco Chronicle about the robotics conference. I gave a speech at it yesterday.
At the two-day RoboBusiness Conference, about 2,000 people were serenaded with lullabies and Disney tunes, including “Let It Go” from the hit film “Frozen,” by a human-like robot designed to comfort senior citizens and autistic children.
And next to a man-size robot that can drive a motorcycle 190 mph around a race track, a half-dozen ant-size robots quickly scurried about a miniature factory floor.
“In five years, could you imagine what this conference is going to look like?” Transhumanist Party presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan asked the crowd. “There are going to be 8-foot robots walking all around us, talking to us, some of them maybe being smarter than us.”
The 12th annual conference, which wrapped up Thursday, illustrated how the focus of robotics is shifting from industrial uses to consumer products. That’s especially true at a time when drones, self-driving cars and police robots that carry bombs are making news.