By studying how people think about three different types of abstract entities—a corporation, a robot and a God—we can better understand how people think about the mind.

For more than a decade, roboticists have worked on systems for the elderly, hoping to extend the amount of time that seniors can live at home and improve their quality of life. Now MIT researchers have built a humanoid robot with a special motion-tracking system and spring-loaded actuators that make it better equipped to deal with household chores. The robot, named Domo, can size up an object by shaking it in its hand and then put it away in a cupboard.

BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.

baby robots? sounds like a Steven Spielberg film

At the Museum of Sex in New York City, artificial-intelligence researcher David Levy projected a mock image on a screen of a smiling bride in a wedding dress holding hands with a short robot groom. “Why not marry a robot? Look at this happy couple,” he said to a chuckling crowd.

Is love and marriage with robots an institute you can disparage? Not to computer pioneer David Levy. Continuing advances in computers and robotics, he thinks, will make legal marriages between Homo and Robo feasible by mid-century

Robot Stuff

Robot Art

Robo Stuff

"My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience.