When people imagine the AI apocalypse, they generally imagine robots. But the robot-takeover scenario most often envisioned by science fiction is not exactly looming. Recent and explosive progress in AI--along with recent and explosive hype surrounding it--has made the existential risks posed by the technology a topic of mainstream conversation. Yet progress in robotics--which is to say, machines capable of interacting with the physical world through motion and perception--has been lagging way behind. "I can't help but feel a little envious," said Eric Jang, the vice president of AI at the humanoid-robotics company 1X, in a talk at a robotics conference last year.

Amazon's Alexa needs its own robotic body to reach its full potential, creators of the smart assistant say. It may mean future versions of the popular gadget are able to follow their owners around the house and listen to conversations with greater ease. Rohit Prasad, head scientist at Amazon's Alexa division, claims the only way to rid the AI-assistant of its shackles is to'give it eyes and let it explore the world'. He said this would be the only way for the devices to better understand the ambiguity and complexity of human language. Rohit Prasad, head scientists at Amazon's Alexa division, claims the only way to rid the AI-assistant of its shackles is to give it'eyes to explore the world'.

John Scalzi is known for his witty science fiction thrillers. Old Man's War and its sequels are his take on military science fiction, while last year's Collapsing Empire was a new foray into space opera. His latest novel Head On is a techno-thriller involving robotic sports leagues and murder, and it's a book that's particularly relevant in our own, technological world. Head On is the sequel to Scalzi's 2014 thriller Lock In and an accompanying novella, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome. In each, he introduces readers to a world that's experienced a medical catastrophe: a flu pandemic infected and killed millions of people around the world, and left some of the survivors with Haden's Syndrome, a condition that left them "locked in" to their bodies.

The idea of immortality has been ingrained in humanity's creative consciousness since our humble beginnings. In the present day, eternal youth may soon move out of the realms of myth and into a reality thanks to developing technologies. The 2045 movement, founded by Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov in 2011, aims to make humans immortal by transferring their personalities into a carrier superior to the human body. The movement's ideology is "to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual's personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality." There are four main avenues that the cooperative are walking down in an attempt to achieve human immortality. Each step reflects a chronological step in the project, with each stage representing a further degree of disembodiment.

Humanoid robots could soon allow us to stream our consciousness anywhere in the world, acting as surrogate bodies that enable people to'instantly be in multiple places at once.' This is the goal of the Avatar XPrize, an ANA-sponsored concept for a 22 million contest just selected at the XPrize Visioneers 2016 Summit as'ready to launch.' The technology would make James Cameron's Avatar a reality, developing'limitless travel' avatars that can be rented and controlled remotely by a human operator, who will be able to hear, see, and feel what the robot is experiencing. Humanoid robots could soon allow us to stream our consciousness anywhere in the world, acting as surrogate bodies that enable people to'instantly be in multiple places at once.' The Avatar XPrize aims to facilitate the creation of'avatars that you – the public will be able to use to travel anywhere, anytime, instantly.'