Probotics is now working on a voice-activated version that can make decisions about what tasks are more important. Electrolux, the world's largest household appliance manufacturer, produced the world's first robotic vacuum cleaner, but has no plans for mass-production. Its competition is the 600 Robomow, for example, is a battery-operated lawnmower, directed by an electric perimeter wire and driving itself with sensors to detect and avoid obstacles. This especially applies to tasks dangerous for humans, such as searching for land mines, or cleaning up chemical spills. It's hard to get them to do household chores such as recognise doors, open them and look inside.
Robots have very clumsy hands and arms.
They don't have good tactile sensory capability, to grab different kinds of door knobs. According to Professor Kevin Warwick, of the Department of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, today's elementary robots will lead to something far more complicated. When these devices surpass human intelligence they will no longer want to be controlled by us. Already Warwick has succeeded in teaching a team of robots in America a set of instructions learned by another team of robots in England, with information relayed via a satellite link. At the Prism Laboratory in UCD, established in 1996 to study intelligence systems and media, scientists design robots which perform domestic and office tasks, communicate with each other and even play together.