Over the past 50 years, robots have become a normal part of our everyday lives. They build cars in factories, clean up dirt in the house and dismantle bombs in war zones. However, some inventors are creating a future where robots not only do our boring and dangerous jobs but also become a part of our families.

In 2019, a Japanese robotics company introduced LOVOT, a robot that weighs as much as a baby and looks like a mix between a penguin (企鹅) and a bear. Although LOVOT can’t build a car, it can build a relationship with its owner and provide love, companionship and happiness. In fact, LOVOT is just one of the latest robots meant to help people who are suffering from mental problems such as loneliness and dementia (痴呆).

LOVOT has a system of sensors that allows it to move freely around a room and respond to things. For example, they will fall asleep when it’s held. Also, when LOVOT needs a hug, it will find its owner in the house and wait until it is picked up.

All over the world, robots like LOVOT are being used for “robot-assisted therapy (疗法).” For example, when a robot baby seal named PARO was given to an elderly Australian patient with dementia, the patient spoke for the first time since arriving at the nursing home. In New Zealand, when dementia patients were given the chance to play with PARO or a real dog, they chose to play with PARO. And in a Japanese elderly home, PARO reduced the stress levels of the elderly.

Robots like LOVOT and PARO are being developed at the perfect time. Many countries have “aging societies”, resulting in more people who not only need assistance with things like getting dressed and cooking meals but also friendship and love. Also, according to a research in Japan, 40 percent of all people in that country will be living alone by 2040, meaning loneliness among younger populations may also increase. However, if LOVOT and PARO can give us all the love and affection we get from pets without any of the mess or regular care, we might not be so lonely after all.

Google's new artificial intelligence can defeat both humans and other AIs. Fortunately, the only war zone where it fights and wins is the ancient board game Go（围棋）.

AlphaGo Zero, developed by Google-owned DeepMind, is the latest AI program. The original AlphaGo defeated Go master Lee Sedol last year, and AlphaGo Master, an updated version, went on to win 60 games against top human players. What's different about AlphaGo Zero is that it became potentially the world's best Go player without any help from humans.

The program AlphaGo Zero started off knowing only the basic rules and then played millions of games against itself in just a few days. After almost five million games played against itself, AlphaGo Zero could outplay humans and the original AlphaGo. After 40 days, it was capable of beating AlphaGo Master.

The program learned the strategies humans accumulated over thousands of years in a matter weeks and also developed nontraditional strategies and moves that beat the techniques of the human masters, leaving them astonished. "At each stage of the game, it seems to gain a bit here and lose a bit there, but somehow it ends up slightly ahead, as if by magic," said Andrew Jackson of the American Go Association

DeepMind says it has plans for the technology behind AlphaGo Zero beyond just defeating all over an ancient game board. "In the end, we want to apply these breakthroughs to helping solve all sorts of pressing real world problems like designing new materials," said Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, in a statement.

That sounds great, but just as a precaution, let's take the advice of Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking and keep any super-fast learning AI away from the nuclear launch codes for now.

In the early 1980s，an American engineer Chuck Hull went to his boss with an idea：to build a machine that prints out things you can hold in your hand. His manager told him that the company produced UV lamps, not machines that were able to make copies of things of all kinds. But finally they reached an agreement. Hull would spend the day working on the company’s lamps；at night he’d work on his machine.

It was the UV lights that gave Hull the idea at first. The lamps were used in factories to harden a plastic veneer（薄片镶饰）. Hull realized that he could use UV lights to cut plastic pieces into whatever shape he liked and then pile these pieces to form a 3-D thing. Then he had to write programs to tell his machine how to cut each piece. At last，his first 3-D printer was put together.

But by the mid-1980s，the printer had developed into a working product，though it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Because the printer was too heavy to carry to exhibitions，Hull made home movies to show it to people. “The movies were pretty boring，but even so，”he said，“we got a strong reaction，especially in Detroit. Back then，the US car industry had been far behind Japan and the car companies were eager for a secret weapon（武器）. “The 3-D printer was just that：engineers could make their own models for parts such as door handles（把手），rather than send plans to a tool and dye shop，saving months during the design process and thus making their cars more competitive.

Now that the technology is becoming affordable，all kinds of people have caught 3-D fever. A professor from the University of California is working on printing out an entire house. Another 3-D artist has made a robotic hand that lets his son，who was born without several fingers，pick up a water bottle. “Anything that can be made will be made by anyone anywhere，”wrote Joris Peels，a 3-D pioneer. “Anyone will be able to 3-D-print a spoon，a truck or a rose. ”