While watching the movie Salvation, 4th installment of the famous Terminator Series, my friend remarked that the movie is good but very unrealistic and too robotic to digest. Even my parents did not like it, saying that the entire series is based on some futuristic figment of imagination which they don't see happening in near future. They would rather love to see a flick where human emotions are embroiled in a gestaltic mix of drama. Easier to understand and relate with. Simple!

Being the over-enthusiastic and passionate geek I am,  I tried my level best to make them understand the beauty and complexity of an advanced man-machine ecosystem in order to arouse interest in them. But all efforts were colored in vain, and I realized it is pretty difficult for most of us to get out of our "psychological shell" in order to try and understand the real reality of the world as it is, leave alone comprehending the immediate near future. And I thought (or almost decided), "It is just impossible to explain to people how close we are getting to a world where machines are inter-connected in more ways than one, acting more like humans and probably possesing higher consiousness levels than what we have!". Fortunately I am not alone! More and more companies around the world are springing up trying to capture the immense business potential which this man-machine networked eco-system can bring.

After watching the recent Toybots presentation (held in San Fransisco, a TC50 event), I can imagine how fast we are moving towards a world where humans and machines co-exist and respect the presence of the other. Toybots showcased their technology platform which will link your favourite little teddy bear with the Internet, making it possible for you to:

1. send control commands via the Internet to program your toy's behavior remotely

2. make it perform certain tasks in an auotmated mode (like mechanical barking at certain intervals, sounding pre-set alarms, or recording a video and then uploading it to the Internet so that the parents can see what their children are upto real-time!)

3. maybe later versions will have human-bots remotely controlled and pre-programmed with different options, and one can easily configure his/her choice of bot online via the Internet

4. pre-feeding emotions like love, hatred, jealously in your favourite choice of toy and watching it act almost like a human

So how is this inter-connectivity going to make a difference to the robotic pets? The answer lies in the unlimited human imagination, and the fact that anything can be possible when the bots have the additional ability to talk and connect "remotely".  We humans have become an advanced species given our power to "talk", share things, and learn from each other. Communication has helped us grow exponentially within quite an unrealistic time frame. We have made more progress in the last 50 years than compared to what we achieved in the last 10,000 years! And creating a platform for machines to interact and communicate with each other might open up another somewhat similar exponential evolutionary path for them! A bot can use the Internet as its own brain, a possible storehouse of information and knowledge at its instant disposal. With the power to communicate with other machines over the network, it is not difficult to dread the scenario when things might go haywire with the machines taking control of their "conciousness".

We already have companies making androids, robotic pets like AIBO . And how cannot I mention sex dolls, automated versions of which are a rage in some countries. Networked communication pathways will make gynoids or sex-dolls more interactive and human.

A sex doll manufactured and sold online by www.realdoll.com

After all the sex industry is a magnitude more bigger than the toy industry, and in countries like Japan a lot of men are leaning more and more towards the controlled sex dolls for care-free and unlimited on-demand pleasure.

Toybots might be just a start, a small step towards automating machines. But there are many companies which have invested billions of dollars trying to develop intelligent machines, machines having automated bots with "conciousness" and self-awareness. Such bots will definitely open up endless possiblities in not only the toys industry, but military, sex, security, and possibly pave the way for creating the ultimate cyborg! And the day will not be far when you will see a T-800 romancing with a T-X!