This picture taken on January 20, 2011 shows the Eindhoven High Tech Campus (HTC).
EU-funded scientists are publicly demonstrating a worldwide web for robots that will allow connected robots to share information, collaborate on simple tasks and hopefully not plot the overthrow of their human masters.
For now, the network will remain limited to four harmless robots, according to the BBC. They will connect to a network called RoboEarth that will go on public demonstration at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands.
Once online, the robots will assist patients in a hospital setting. One will upload a map of the room, which it can use to guide another robot to serve drinks, while a third will resist the urge to place a pillow over the patient’s face while she’s sleeping.
All kidding aside, one artificial intelligence expert told the BBC that safeguards should be put into place now to prevent unintended evolutions later.
The goal of the project is to create a “common brain” for robots that will transmit the algorithms for simple tasks to any robot on the network rather than force programmers to code the instructions into robots one by one, wasting valuable processing power.
[BBC]