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My out-of-body experience controlling a robotic avatar

By Alex Wilkins

Android robots that can patrol by themselves or be controlled by humans remotely could be used to carry out tasks in dangerous environments, such as high-voltage power plants. Developed by Norwegian robotics company 1X, EVE is one such device. On show at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in London last week, I got to take control of this telepresence android that has found its first job as a night-time security guard within the aerospace industry.

The first time I tried on the headset that allowed me to virtually inhabit EVE was a little disconcerting, seeing my own body from a couple of metres away and waving at my human self with machine arms, but the experience quickly felt surprisingly normal. It doesn’t take a leap of imagination to see an entirely new class of job — human android operator — becoming standard in the very near future.

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