Our future could be full of undying, self-repairing robots – here's how

With generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT and StableDiffusion being the talk of the town right now, it might feel like we've taken a giant leap closer to a sci-fi reality where AIs are physical entities all around us. Indeed, computer-based AI appears to be advancing at an unprecedented rate. But the rate of advancement in robotics – which we could think of as the potential physical embodiment of AI – is slow. Could it be that future AI systems will need robotic "bodies" to interact with the world? If so, will nightmarish ideas like the self-repairing, shape-shifting T-1000 robot from the Terminator 2 movie come to fruition?