While the robot uprising is likely a fair ways off, a lot of people genuinely believe it could happen. It's the kind of apocalypse that feeds into the idea that the creation will eventually overcome the creator, and giving a non-sentient thing sentence, and then the ability to replicate, is just a bad idea.
There's good news, though. Despite the fact that it's one of the more realistic apocalypse scenarios, it's also one that will, at the very least, have some good stuff along the way. For example, robot helpers are becoming more and more useful as technology improves. In one instance, robots are being used for cleaning, and they're getting quite good at helping sift through the waste post-demolition.
Rubbish robots are being ready to rubble
This time around it comes via the BBC's rather excellent Click program. This is the program they have that investigates technology as a whole, and it's one of the more enjoyable things that the BBC makes, because it's genuinely informative, and often very interesting too.
The robots in question help to deal with a problem that's been an issue ever since we've started destroying buildings, which has been a fair while at this point. The issue is that there are a lot of materials produced when you're knocking down a building, and they become harder to sift through the more our ability to build buildings changes too. Well, this is now being solved thanks to the help of robots that can pick through conveyor belts filled with debris, and help pull out the pieces that can be recycled.
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Robot helpers equals greener future
At the moment, this is happening in a recycling plant in Finland. The BBC article has a video showing off how the robots are working and explaining what they're doing in detail. It's fascinating to see the robots still in the learning phase, but it's an excellent use of automation that could genuinely help the planet out in the long-term, and that can only ever be a good thing.
As robots learn more about these things, ideally not from the internet, they become more efficient, and will help us recycle the materials and then use them again. It should reduce emissions in subtle ways. For example, having access to materials locally can reduce transportation emissions. You've then got the byproducts that are produced when creating building materials from pure sources too. It's all good stuff, basically.