Robotics expert Robin Murphy explains why 'Star Wars' robots don't reflect reality

Robotics is a smoking-hot industry that's evolving by literal leaps and bounds, and the top researchers in the field are also some of sci-fi's geekiest fans. Robin Murphy, the Raytheon professor of computer science and engineering at Texas A&M University, specializes in artificial intelligence for robotics. As a component of her curriculum, she writes "Science Fiction, Science Fact," a series of provocative, engaging articles that highlight the myriad differences between the robots and droids depicted in popular science fiction films and the best sci-fi TV shows and actual robots and autonomous machines working in the real world. Although "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett" excel in depicting visually arresting Star Wars droids, their mechanical designs are not only impractical but often no match for real robots, Murphy explained in a column in the journal Science Robotics (opens in new tab). In addition to being one of the finest minds in robotics, she's the distinguished author of several MIT Press books on the topic, including "Robotics Through Science Fiction (opens in new tab)" (2018), "Introduction to AI Robotics (opens in new tab)" (2001, 2018) and "Disaster Robotics (opens in new tab)" (2014).