ABSTRACT
T his chapter is intended as a kind of pivot, between the “how computers have become intelligent” of the preceding part of the book, and the “why and how robots will become much more intelli-
gent” in the subsequent chapters. Here then is a summary state-of-the-art survey, my personal selection of remarkable aspects of robot technology and intelligence which, I feel, typify where we are today (2005). Most of them reveal some of the achievements of AI researchers during the past 50 years, and any of the robots described in this chapter could also be designed and programmed to perform any or all of the other tasks described hitherto in this book. The exception is a novel technology, which promises eventually to enable robots to be self-sufficient in terms of the electrical power they consume.
