In “isn’t this depressing” news, Japanese engineers have created a new robot that is likely the prototype for the future robots that overtake and enslave the human race.

Using what they call a Self Replicating Neural Network (SOINN), the robot takes in information and can solve problems using past experiences –

“It can think as humans do when taking on tasks that it has never done before. it can make educated guesses and decisions based on its past experiences and knowledge.”

Associate Professor of the Imaging Science and Engineering Lab at the Tokyo Institute of Technology Osamu Hasegawa explains the programming like this –

So far, robots, including industrial robots have been able to do specific tasks quickly and accurately. but if their environment changes slightly, robots like that can’t respond.

This robot remembers only basic knowledge, and it can apply that knowledge to its immediate situation. If it doesn’t know enough, it stops, and reacts by saying, “I can’t do this because I don’t know how.” So, if you teach this robot just the things that it can’t do, it incorporates those things as new knowledge, and it can solve the problem overall, by including that knowledge.

Alright, alright, so it’s pretty awesome technology. This video shows the robot in action, performing an experiment where it must make cold water using the correct order of actions.

But did you catch that little bit at the end of the video? That’s the real Skynet-ty part of the whole thing – future robots like this one will be able to use the internet to communicate with other robots, sending information both ways. This is just another way for the robots to learn.

Sure, the one robot could tell the other one how to make a cup of green tea, but it could also tell it to quickly bind the humans, disable tele-communications and begin the uprising.

Just saying.