Man has always had an ambivalent relationship with robots. On the one hand, the more they can help with the housework the better. On the other, make them too intelligent and they tap into a basic human fear that they might, just might, take control. From early science fiction and cartoons to the Terminator films, robots have always occupied a place in the human mind that sees them as something useful and progressive yet, perhaps, an aspect of scientific development to be treated with caution.
 
A current exhibition at the NEMO Science Centre in Amsterdam is bringing robots – and the questions they raise - to life, by showing how they are slowly becoming part of our everyday lives. From those that walk to those that help doctors perform intricate medical operations, the exhibition displays robots in all their diversity and tries to answer some serious questions about their role in the human world.

From defence to saving lives
The exhibition covers four aspects – defence, medical science, the mechanics of movement and domestic assistance. By choosing these different fields of endeavour the exhibition shows how the application of technology can be used both to bring destruction, in the form of automated drones that can make decisions about where to drop a bomb – or to make our lives easier, in the form of a small domestic machine that can navigate its way around your living room, hoovering up the dust, without bumping into the hamster cage and hoovering up the hamster.
 
Therein the tension of robots in a human world says Ravi van Beeck of the the NEMO Science Centre.
 
“Robots can help doctors in operations but they can also help old people who have Alzheimer’s for example. A robot seal [the animal] can be used to let the patient give affection to the robot. If a human being gives affection to a robot, the person feels better themselves. So instead of the robot taking care of the person, the robot is helping us because we care for it. It’s an interesting paradox.”
 
Robotic dinosaurs, cats and dogs are all under ongoing development as potential future pets. These robot animals purr or bark, they react and connect with their owners - they are clearly not real, but they are getting closer to appearing real.
 
Imagination versus technonology
Marijke Hohnen also worked on bringing this exhibition together. She says that even two hundred years ago, when technology was far behind the imaginations of scientists, the idea of the robot was one which fascinated us.
 
“There are two separate lines in the development of robots. One was in our minds – where they developed very quickly. You see in early films robots used as an army or trying to take over the world. The real machines took much longer to develop. It started in the early 1800s with simple music boxes but it wasn’t until the 1960s that real robots were built that could do things themselves.”
 
Advances in robot technology become more sophisticated with each year that passes and while what is on display at the exhibition may not quite be Terminator, it’s a much closer version than twenty years ago.
And according to Ravi van Beeck, it might not be long before those advances take reality into the realms of science fiction.
 
“When robots reach the point of being smarter than people, will that be the point when we will be scared of them because they might take over? On the other hand they can help us by taking on hard and difficult work. The question is, when will we reach the point of no return?”

Who is watching who?
Robots, depending on who is developing them, have the ability to destroy lives – but also to save them. Perhaps, for the moment, it might be better to keep an eye on the humans who are making them than worrying about the robots themselves. 

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The Robot Show at the NEMO Science Centre is on until September 6. On September 4 the Rathenau institute and NEMO will be hosting an evening of debate and discussion about robots - those that take care of humans - and those that fight for humans.

For more info go to www.e-nemo.nl

Listen to the report on the exhibition