Robots can be designed to clean the floor, as long as everything they might encounter in the room has a programmed response. Suddenly introduce an open bottle of juice and the robot is likely to knock it over then smear juice all over the floor, completely unaware that it is making the situation worse. Robots can be designed to answer questions from humans, as long as every question has a programmed response – ask something new and the robot will have very little to say. Robots can even be designed to dance, but try to dance with it and we are likely to get hurt as the robot cannot read and react to our unpredictable human dance moves.  This is the stage robotics is at today, but recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) may now open the door to robots that can whirl you round the dancefloor, charm you with natural conversation, and even clean […]