Roombas, self driving cars, industrial robot arms (depending on what they do), cruise control,cruise missiles, are all robots by the dictionary definition. They react to their environment. That's the classifier.

His view of I know it when I see it is nuts but he is right on many of the classifications. Some were incorrect though. But a robot is just anything that has a sensor to interact with the environment.

We have simply changed the meaning to be more human like which is not accurate.

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michaelt 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> They react to their environment. That's the classifier.

An industrial robot arm, out of the box, only has internal sensing (joint position, torque etc) and a start/stop button - can't sense the external environment at all.

But I've got a light on my porch that turns on when it gets dark.

By the 'react to the environment' definition the former is not a robot, and the latter is.

	▲	ktallett 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It would have to have a force torque sensor which interacts with the environment around it (aka the object being manipulated). Hence it being a robot arm. However if indeed an industrial arm doesn't have that, then yes robot is the wrong term for it.