Just read my daily robot news feed and came across this article about self healing robots. Basically they will put sensors in the soft tissue that can'feel' and sense pain. The self-healing project is seeking to create what it describes as "anthropomorphic materials, capable of feeling pain" Part of me likes the idea of robots'feeling' something and another part of my is terrified of it. I do understand the usecase and value but also feel like it is one more step of building systems that will further outperform humans. We have been building tools since the dawn of man that enhance or help us outperform each other, but the difference is that in the coming inflection point when the machines actually are not dependent on humans anymore to create themselves, heal themselves and expand their presence without our control, it will be new era.

From picking fruit to carrying out minor surgery, soft robotic hands made from jelly-like plastic are thought by scientists to be the future solution to many human needs. But being gentle and soft enough to avoid damaging fruit or flesh has made the robots prone to damage and left them largely impractical for use in the real world – until now. A European commission-funded project, led by scientists at the Free University of Brussels and the University of Cambridge, aims to create "self-healing" robots that can feel pain, or sense damage, before swiftly patching themselves up without human intervention. The researchers have already successfully developed polymers that can heal themselves by creating new bonds after about 40 minutes. The next step will be to embed sensor fibres in the polymer which can detect where the damage is located.

The first forms of anesthetics, for example, didn't emerge until the mid-1800s. But in less than the 200 years since, "things have changed beyond recognition," writes Yuval Harari in his best-selling book, "Sapiens." "Pills, injections and sophisticated operations save us from a spate of illnesses and injuries that once dealt an inescapable death sentence," he writes. "They also protect us against countless daily aches and ailments, which pre-modern people simply accepted as part of life." The average life expectancy since the 1800s has jumped between 25 and 40 years--to about 80 years in the developed world and about 70 years worldwide.

When we work harder, our hearts beat faster. When we're hot, we sweat. But in the 54 years since British mathematician Alan Turing introduced the notion of artificial intelligence, computer scientists haven't delivered anything close to a self-aware and self-healing computer. That may change soon enough. Researchers in business and government labs are building systems that will challenge what it means to be an IT worker by automating many of the monitoring and maintenance tasks done today by hand.