Robots will become our companions and carers in the coming decades, it has been claimed.
Happily we won't have to wait so long for chauffeur robots given prototype robot- controlled cars are already on the road.
Our lives and how they will change in the company of robots provided the theme for a session of the American Association of the Advancement of Science meeting in San Francisco over the weekend.
Scientists described the potential for "nanny-bots", carer and baby-sitter robots and robotic cameras that use powerful artificial intelligence in an attempt to take pictures of the extremely rare ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct.
Robots will become so pervasive that we need to develop ways now of interacting with them, suggested Dr Cynthia Breazeal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. "It really is about a human-robot partnership," she told the meeting.
Interaction of this kind is not necessary for the wholly autonomous robot-driven cars being developed by competitors in the "Grand Challenge" racing competitions organised by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). The first challenge was held in March 2004 and featured a 142- mile desert course.
Fifteen autonomous ground vehicles attempted the course and no vehicle finished.
In the 2005 challenge, four autonomous vehicles successfully completed a 132- mile desert route under the required 10-hour limit and Darpa awarded a €1.6 million prize to "Stanley" from Stanford University.
Now competitors are preparing for the Darpa "Urban Challenge", where autonomous vehicles will be expected to navigate 60 miles through an artificial urban environment in under six hours, hoping for a share of the €2.8 million prize.
Stanford's entry "Junior" was described by Dr Sebastian Thrum, who leads the Stanford Racing Team. The competition takes place on November 3rd.
"Today we can drive about 100 miles without human intervention," he said. By 2020 this should reach one million miles, he believes.
Dr Ken Goldberg of the University of California, Berkeley, discussed robots as environmentalists. He developed an autonomous robot-camera system, installing it in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas in an attempt to provide conclusive photographic evidence that the ivory-billed woodpecker still lives.
It was thought to be extinct, but recent claimed sightings give reason to hope it has found a niche where it survives.
Nanny-bots that keep an eye on the performance of child minders are already in use, stated Dr David Calkins of San Francisco State University.
"In the future that will be taken many steps forward. The robot will eventually become the nanny."