What are ASIMO & IBM Watson?

Honda ASIMO- The world's most advanced humanoid robot. The acronym stands for Advanced Step in Innovative MObility. The ultimate goal of Honda, is to place ASIMO into every household as their "personal assistant". Honda has spent billions of dollars in developing this robot with a personality & thought process. Although ASIMO is not as advanced as Rosie the robot from the Jetsons, this is the beginning stages. As AI (artificial intelligence) becomes more advanced, ASIMO becomes smarter, better & more human.
 In the 1980s Honda began developing humanoid robots & in 2000 they began ASIMO who was released to the public in 2005. Right now, ASIMO is a cute robot with an adorable childlike personality. His ability to process his own thoughts is minimal, yet it does have the ability to think for itself to a certain limit. ASIMO is a showoff, that shows his limited abilities. But again, as time progresses, ASIMO will have less limitations & after technological singularity it's abilities will be far greater then we can imagine today. Will ASIMO be able to process thoughts as humans do, will there be a day that his intelligence is greater than ours?
In the future there will be many uses for ASIMO like robots. The military is already using various robots in the battlefield, but nothing like what ASIMO potentially can be. Yet DARPA does have robots that resemble hummingbirds that are used for surveillance.
An interesting aspect of this is that some humanoid robots are created to resemble humans. Their leather skin is flexible, giving them the ability to make human expressions. Again this technology is only in very primitive stages, but as we all know all technology starts in primitive stages. There was a time less than 30 years ago that supercomputers (the size of a very large room) were not as nearly as advanced as the average cellphone. Things that are done on playstation 3 were once impossible at a time, & games such as World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto 4, & Skyrim are all children of Pong, a game released in 1972. As time progresses technology advances at a faster & faster pace leading towards technological singularity.
You may have seen the supercomputer Watson totally dominate the 2 human champions in Jeopardy. Watson does not think, it makes sensible calculations based on an extremely large database. Working similar to a google search, Watson finds the answers in milliseconds based on its database.  At the moment, Watson is only an advanced talking calculator.

Are these inventions the future rulers of humanity? Many believe so. While their creators state that man has watched too many science fiction movies which project a false action plot. That humans will always have control over the computers no matter how much the computers evolve. The computer will always be submissive to humans & can only do what it is programmed to do. There will be a time that a computer can learn things it's not programmed & be able to build other computers.
Some consider this the 2nd genesis. When consciousness can be programmed (they're working on this but many believe quantum computers are the only way to do this) into a machine & it's AI is so advanced that it has emotions & personal desires. Is it possible that these magnificent inventions will rule man when they're mass produced? Is it only a matter of time until science fiction becomes scientific prophecy?
Writers like Arthur C. Clarke, & H.G. Wells have predicted inventions that we currently exist. Although there is no space elevator, there will be one (actually many) in a short future. The "prophets of science fiction" may have thought they were writing fictional stories, yet they were in fact showing their audiences the future & sometimes an unknown present.  Aldous Huxley gave us a vision of the intended future in "Brave New World", & Clarke's "2001 Space Odyssey" expresses what Watson may become when it's fully advanced. Philip K. Dick predicted our current day surveillance conditions & the initial theme for "Total Recall".
There are very few things written in science fiction novels & put into science fiction movies that are not current day goals. Some items we see that appear as futuristic are actually available today. Who would ever think that a plasma gun/ heat ray would exist, but it has for years. DARPA's advanced weaponry & technology range from causing earthquakes & manipulation of the clouds (or the weather). We won't even discuss  their "Star Wars" program.
Although this writing was very brief it's very important. It may be important to ask ourselves where these technological advances will lead us within the next 100 years. With predictions like PC Magazine who states by 2040 most homes will have a robot in them or considering buying one, much like personal computers in the 1990s, are fiction writers letting their imaginations run wild or possibly showing the future of humanity?