2024-06-12
4 分钟Hello, Alice Fullwood here, co-host of Money Talks,
our weekly podcast on markets, the economy and business.
Welcome to Editors' Picks.
You're about to hear an article from the latest edition of The Economist.
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In science fiction that is usually an ominous warning.
In the real world it is a prediction and a welcome one.
The field of robotics has made impressive progress in the past year as researchers in universities and industry have applied advances in artificial intelligence or AI to machines.
The same technology that enables chat bots like ChatGPT to hold conversations or systems like Dull-E to create realistic looking images from text descriptions can give robots of all kinds a dramatic brain upgrade.
As a result, robots are becoming more capable,
easier to program, and able to explain what they are doing.
Investors are piling into robotics start-ups.
OpenAI, the creator of JAT GPT, which gave up on robots a few years ago,
has changed its mind and started hiring a new robotics team.
When brought to bear upon the physical world,
previously disembodied AI now appears to have enormous potential.
Robots can inspire fear.
Human beings are trained from birth by Hollywood to be afraid of them,
the latest incarnation of the ancient tale of the inventor who loses control of his creation.
And even if robots are not literally the murderous machines of the Terminator films,