alt Hacker NewsI once had a robotics professor who argued any definition of 'robot' broad enough to include roombas and self-driving cars and industrial robot arms (even if made narrow enough to exclude remote-control toy cars, cars with cruise control, CNC mills and washing machines) would inevitably define cruise missiles as robots. Meaning the world had 'killer robots' before we had digital computers.
Instead, he argued the definition of a robot is "I know it when I see it"
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"I know it when I see it" has to be up there in terms of useless thought-terminating clichés together with "no smoke without fire" and "if he wanted to he would"
Roombas, self driving cars, industrial robot arms (depending on what they do), cruise control,cruise missiles, are all robots by the dictionary definition. They react to their environment. That's the classifier.
His view of I know it when I see it is nuts but he is right on many of the classifications. Some were incorrect though. But a robot is just anything that has a sensor to interact with the environment.
We have simply changed the meaning to be more human like which is not accurate.
What's wrong with a cruise missle being defined as a robot? It is one.
Also I'd argue that a CNC machine is a robot as well, no different than a programmable industrial robotic arm.
IMHO, a dishwasher isn't a robot because it is neither versatile in its objective, nor programmable.