Practical Robots, mal drübergucken und korrigieren ;-)

Hey hab hier ne Aufgabe die bissi zeitaufwendiger zu korrigieren ist, aber wenn jemand spaß dran hat wäre es sehr nett wenn er oder sie mal drüber gucken könnte.

ich poste jetzt erstmal den ausgangstext, dann die fragen zum text und als letztes meine antworten

The Top Ten Technologies: #4: Practical Robots
Practical robots offer tremendous potential for enhancing the quality of life for humans everywhere.
The robotics industry is emerging now, and progress is steady. The world leader in robotics is Japan, which has invested heavily in social robots -- robots that interact with people.
The United States, in contrast, is focused primarily on robots that kill people. The vast majority of robotics research in the U.S. is underwritten by military interests. The Pentagon essentially wants to develop a Terminator: a battlefield robotic soldier that can accomplish political or military objectives without resulting in human casualties that cause troublesome dissent back home.
Once again, we see that a promising area of technology can be both constructive and destructive, depending entirely on the intent of its creators. For this section, however, I will focus on the far more peaceful Japanese approach to robots, because this is the area that holds promise for enhancing the lives of human beings.
Social robots already exist
Early social robots are already on the market: AIBO, Japan`s cute robotic dog, is owned by more than fifty thousand people. AIBO offers basic interaction with humans such as face and voice recognition, cute-looking movements, and simple environmental navigation (it can walk around).
In the U.S., the household robot Roomba (developed by a Russian researcher, by the way) sweeps the floors of hundreds of thousands of homes. Roomba is one of the first few practical robots to be widely available, and it is, indeed, rather useful. I own one myself. However, its interactive capabilities are extremely limited. It has no vision system, for example, no voice recognition, and seems to operate more on random walk theory than any sort of intelligent navigation pattern.
The real promise in robotics will come from humanoid robots, most likely from Japan. Honda, Toyota and Sony are all working hard on humanoid robots and have working, walking prototypes right now. Why humanoid? As humans, we`ve created environments built for humanoid creatures. Our physical environments (cities, houses, stores, etc.) have been constructed for the convenience of people with a certain height, a certain eye level, and a certain stride length. As humanoid robots are developed, the more easily they can navigate our environments the more helpful they can be to humans.
It is the "helpful" category in which humanoid robots offer the greatest promise. At a basic level, these robots promise to free us from physical labor (factory work) and household chores such as doing the dishes, taking out the trash, folding laundry, cooking, etc. This alone, as gimmicky as it may seem, would free people from time-consuming chores. (None of these chores are simple from a robotics point of view, by the way. The technology needed for robots to engage in such tasks is still many years away.)
Such robots would probably never be cheap to build, but they will quickly pay for themselves in terms of reclaimed time for their owners. A professional earning $100,000 / year, for example, might easily waste $25,000 / year worth of her time handling household chores that could be managed by a practical household robot. If the robot costs $50,000, the payoff would be just two years. That`s makes a $50,000 robot a reasonable investment for most professionals.
Robotic companions
Practical robots will no doubt start out as workers or "practical assistants." But this is only the beginning. The next level up, in terms of enhancing the quality of life of humans, is for robots to serve as companions. Are you the parent of an only child? A companion robotic pet or robotic child could teach your child a lot about social interaction, responsibility, friendship, and even help the child learn academic subjects like mathematics, reading, history, literature and science.
Are you a lonely retiree? A robotic companion could add a lot to your life through conversations, games, physical activity, and coaching.
You see, robotic companions won`t argue, won`t betray you, won`t divorce you, won`t die, won`t fall asleep when you want to talk, and they won`t even eat the favorite food out of your refrigerator. As humorous as these points may sound, they are serious considerations for companionship. In time, many humans may choose robot companions over human friends for these (and other) reasons.


QUESTIONS
1.What is the difference between robotic research in Japan and the USA?
2.Describe one example of each a social robot and a robotic companion and their advantages.
3.Can you think of any disadvantages as well?
4.Which of the robots mentioned here could you imagine to be part of your life and/or could you imagine andy other use/type of such robots?

ANSWERS
1. The difference between the robots in Japan and those of the USA is, that in Japan robots are built for the everyday use, for example social projects. In the USA they build , besides the robots which could help in the household (the vakuum cleaner is an example) war robots as well. The war robots serve for the application in problemareas to protect the life of own soldiers. And robots have more efficieny than humans in killing people.

2. Advantages of the social robot (Japan) are, that they could help older people, in addition, they make the work easier and could decrease a lot. Robotic companions can help with the right education of the children and inform them also. The robots of the Usa are good to protect lives of the people. They could limit the risk for soldiers to die. So they are able to prevent such things like the war inVietnam

3. The disadvantages of robots are that everything becomes absolutely impersonal, people could be substituted with the robots from Japan, and therefore the unemployment could rise rapidly. In addition, it could happen that the robots make mistakes, the life of a person could be endangered, if the robot has a short circuit. Indeed, the companion`s robots could take from us the education, but also take from us that role of the parents, it would build up none right relationship to the parents. Disadvantages of the American robots are, that it could lead to that the wars only by robot are led, that means ships, airplanes, tanks are steered by robots, and it could come to to bigger destructions than by people.

4. I believe that by 2020, we can program robots with human reasoning and emotions, which will allow them to perform most of our household tasks. These machines will walk the dog, put groceries away, find and fetch things, prepare and serve meals (and clean up after). We will order our robot from a normal store and can style him like we want to. I would prefer a robot like this, because im very idle and if I have a robot which does all my work I can do everything I want and what makes me fun. Some people will say that these robots will be the reason for unemployment, but today, people who retire receive wealth created by industry. As industry becomes more efficient, there will be more wealth available, allowing people to retire earlier. When industry becomes totally automated, it will create so much wealth that retirement can begin at birth.