The Forum · BBC World Service

Robots and reality

October 18, 2025·49 min·3 clips

Emma Braslavsky asks whether an AI can ever write great literature if it has never had a miscarriage, dementia, or a mother.

The joke begins with a manipulated voice. What first sounds like a bit of studio play becomes the host's neat way into a programme about robots, usefulness, and the awkward line between clever machines and human lives. Then the dishes arrive. Professor Usman Roshan from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and his team at 7X household robotics have built the domestic machine making all that washing-up noise. Listeners know exactly what they want from robots. Some want relief from plain chores, like cleaning toilets and ironing. Others picture a dusting drone or a vacuum cleaner with a snake-like neck. The wishes are funny because they are so practical. A cleaner with camera, LED, lidar, and AI points to the corners and awkward spots where ordinary robotic vacuums still get defeated. From there, the episode widens without losing the sink. The host and guests ask whether artificial intelligence is finally catching up with the physical side of robotics, giving machines the kind of adaptability household work needs. Emma Braslavsky pulls the question somewhere stranger. Instead of asking only whether robots should look or behave like humans, she asks what they could bring to literature and art. She does not tidy the answer up. Can a machine without a mother, illness, children, suffering, or bodily memory make art in the human sense? Even the word intelligence starts to feel slippery. For Emma, it can steer people away from the feelings, longings, and pain that words come from. Usman Roshan brings the discussion back to development. He suggests robots may need more progress on the AI side before their behavior starts to resemble human behavior. The ending stays wry. The host jokes about pretending to be broken when laundry appears, then brings the panel and contributors back into view. Robots seem easiest to defend in industry, or in places too dangerous or demanding for human beings to work safely. The home is messier. Forum listener Ayana gets the last caution: too much convenience can pull people away from responsibility, the earth, and themselves.

As heard by us

A thoughtful discussion of domestic robots, machine-made art, and the uneasy comforts of convenience.

The Forum's "Robots and reality" begins with a practical fantasy: a robot that can take over the chores people avoid, from washing up to dusting and cleaning awkward corners.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a thoughtful robot debate that starts with the washing up, press play.

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