Watch this CMU prof answer Twitter’s questions about robots’ world domination

Although we’re always doing our best to remain knowledgeable about the world’s latest tech developments here at Technical.ly, the truth is, we don’t have all the answers. Luckily, there are plenty of experts we can turn to within the city.

One of them happens to be Henny Admoni, an assistant professor and the lead of the Human and Robot Partners Lab at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. Whereas typically you’d find Admoni fielding robotics-related questions in the classroom, in November she answered questions for a wider audience by appearing in a Wired Q&A video for its “Tech Support” series.

The good news is that Admoni says we’re a long way from robots being able to achieve world domination. The bad news is, that also means you’re not going to be seeing robots as sophisticated as Star Wars’ R2-D2 any time soon.

“We’ve seen lots of movies where robots are the evil beings that are taking over from humans,” Admoni says in the video. “The reality is we’re still really far from any notion of robots being capable enough to operate in environments in order to have any kind of impact like that.”

In addition to assuaging the fears of folks fearing a real life “Twilight Zone” episode (or dashing the hopes of sci-fi fans, depending on what you wanted the future to look like), she tackled questions that ranged from the practical to those that required a look back at the beginning of robotics.

So if you’ve ever found yourself wondering “Will robots take jobs away from humans?” or “Why are people so obsessed with robots?” or even if you’re just a little unclear about what it is that nanobots do, check out this 16-minute video, because Admoni has the answer.

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.