Beginning of Androids?

Robot exhibiting human mobility.

I began my search on YouTube and originally planned to write about a couple of robots built using Lego MindStorms, because of the availability of simple home programmed robots when I came past this robot. Although it is little more than a toy, it shows basic human mobility, able to balance to use its limbs as a human does. At such a small size it can’t be expected to have a large amount of programming involved. If androids are to exist this seems like a step forward in giving them human like qualities. It may be no C3P0, but with a bit of time I could see this in a larger more advanced model. I am not trying to say that before this there were no robots that could walk like a human but it does seem as if this robot, with its ability to lift itself up and balance in such a small concise package is the major breakthrough. What I wonder is how long it will be before a self correcting robot like this (righting itself up), and robots that can navigate busy paths without a set path will integrate making a robot that travels just as a human does. As mentioned in class this self correcting does bring up the concept of feeling pain, as in another post a robot is seen to “feel pain.” If this robot does integrate with navigation, then should it be programmed also to feel pain, or should we give it the “benefit,” of feeling no pain. A truly human like robot would feel pain in my opinion, but to make it optimal by saving space and complexity we would exclude it. Trailing back to an earlier class discussion of robots and sex, would it be appropriate for a robot involved in sexual acts to feel pain. Sado-masochists, both in bed and outside of it, could explore there fetish without inflicting harm on an actual human, but would the robots feeling pain establish that is it too humanly to be treated this way? Perhaps this is a bit spread out, but as each availability of each physical sensation becomes available separately it shouldn’t be long before they integrate, and we shouldn’t be debating each separate sense but their coming together. Each sense separate can be practical, but their joining together makes them an entity that is more than just a machine. The machine that feels pain is just a machine at this point, and has a practical purpose to it, as does a robot that can scan a room and navigate it in order to move things or deliver them to another place in a warehouse, but what economically practical purpose is there to combining these two outside of creating androids? Then, if the answer is to create androids, what will their purpose be? Will they be companions, lovers, coworkers, or will they be replacements for human beings all together?