Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

By 2010 it looks like robots will take over some of the work of building high-rise towers. This new building technology is expected to bring down the number of injuries at high-rise construction sites and also cut down on the time spent on building them. It may only be a matter of years before robots take over such death-defying work. So says the Construction and Transportation Ministry, which announced that it now has the core technology for building high-rises without human workers. [ read more Robots to build high rises by 2010]

Not to be outdone the Japanese also have manual labor robots coming…

Japanese developers have produced a robot intended for manual labouring, which they reckon will be ready to sell to the construction industry by 2010.

In a press event yesterday, the new HRP-3 Promet Mk II from Kawada Industries walked on a slippery floor, shrugged off a drenching under a shower and “used a screwdriver just as a human would.” . . .

There was no word on the droid’s ability to whistle or shout jocular sexual commentary at passing human females or perhaps receptionist-bots, diggers, cement mixers etc. The back of the Promet’s “cantilevered crotch joint” certainly doesn’t show the traditional inch or two of sweaty cleavage customarily flaunted by the true construction professional. [ read more Japanese firm exhibits droid construction worker]