Dyson To Open Robotics Lab At Imperial College

If you’re anything like most “normal” people, part of your daily and weekly activities revolve around housekeeping. Whether it’s doing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, or vacuuming the floor, we all have duties around the house that we wish we didn’t have to do. If you have children, they of course can be added into the chore lineup, but most kids I know don’t operate on a professional setting. They often do things just as quick as they can to get them done, and then it’s up to us as parents to finish the job.

But, there may be a day coming when housekeeping duties get kicked out of the house for good and in their place will be robots. James Dyson, who is the man behind the popular vacuums and other expensive home technology bearing his name thinks we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to what our technology can do for us. Dyson is so sure of this that he is helping to open a special laboratory at London’s Imperial College all for robotic systems.

A Robot For All Seasons

Dyson isn’t just supplying the ideas for this robotics lab, he’s also shelling out quite a bit of his own money to get it going – somewhere in the realm of $8.2 million.

15 scientists will research domestic robots as well as vacuum cleaner technology out of the lab. Who knows what will eventually come from this research – could housekeeping robots really exist within our generation? And, if they did exist, who would be able to afford them?

Imagine for a minute that they did exist and the average family could afford them – how much time would that add back into our busy schedules to do something else we actually wanted to do?

How much easier life would be if we all had robots to sweep our floors, scrub our toilets, and cook our meals? But at the same time, what would we do? I’d probably just find another excuse to sit on my rear. It seems if we’re not careful, this world will soon be on the verge of allowing robots to do more than people, and I’m not so sure that’s such a good thing.

[Image via mashable]

SOURCE: http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/9/5394920/dyson-robotic-vision-lab-imperial-college