Some day there may be a robot that takes the drudgery out of housework and even cleans windows, but how soon such a robot will emerge is anybody's guess. Mr.Joseph Engelberger, President of Unimation, Inc. which makes industrial robots, says a workable domestic robot might take shape by the late 1980s, but Mr. Ben Skora, an amateur robot builder now working on his second creation, predicts household robots in about fifty years, and the Director of Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Dr. John McCarthy, says domestic robots are anywhere from five to five hundred years away.
Although robots are already widely used in industry -from welding car parts to handling explosives -the gap between the industrial robot and a domestic one is great, according to Dr.McCarthy. Closing the gap will require an intellectual break -through.
'Take the task of clearing the table and washing the dishes,' he suggested 'The robots will have to be able to discriminate between rubbish and dishes that should be washed and, meanwhile, not trip over the dog or baby on the floor on its way to the dishwasher.'
He said that the robot, which he defines as a general purpose physical action machine that is automatically controlled, probably will not end up looking like a human being .Instead the robot might have a central 'brain' that controls a whole army of bodies, like a staff of servants, each as -signed to a specific duty.
Mr.Engelberger thinks the domestic robot is right around the corner, just waiting for an eco -nomic boost to help it over the remaining technological hurdles. He expects the household robot to be modeled after an industrial forebear.
'But the person who wants a robot will have to build this world around it,' Mr. Engelberger said.' for example, a fellow building a house might spend twenty -five per cent more to have it "robotized". Such a "robotized" house probably would have to be free of stairs and other encumbrances that could trip a near -sighted robot, would provide special sockets for it to plug into, and would contain a "pantry" where the robot's brain and tools would be stored.'
He added that the robot would probably have to see (by means of a sophisticated TV camera) and have a sense of touch to do housework. It could even be programmed for some superhuman tasks, such as acting as a smoke -detector that would alert a family to a fire and then fight it.
The robot created by Mr. Skora is a long way from fighting fires, but Arok (which is Mr.Skora's name spelt backwards without the's ) can vacuum the carpet, take out the rubbish and bring in the mail by following programs in his computer brain. For the more complicated tasks, such as taking the dog for a walk, Mr. Skora commands Arok through a radio -transmitter as he watches the robot from a window.' No computer in the world could work out when a dog is ready to stop,' He pointed out .
Mr. Skora says that Arok was conceived more as an experimental toy than a convenience. In fact, Arok doesn't save any time around the house and demands supervision for the simplest chore.

26.The main idea of the first paragraph is that we .
A. will definitely have domestic robots one day
B. will not have domestic robots for a very long time
C. will have domestic robots in the fairly near future
D. have no way of knowing when we may have domestic robots

27.the writer uses the word 'creation' (1.5) because .
A. Mr. Skora is an amateur robot builder
B. It was Mr. Skora's second robot
C. Mr. Skora was making something that had never been made before
D. The robot was an experiment

28.Dr McCarthy believes that there is a big difference between an industrial robot and a domes -tic one because the domestic robot .
A. will be more intellectual
B. must be capable of performing more functions
C. must be automatically controlled
D. will not look like a human being

29.Mr. Engelberger thinks that the domestic robot will be .
A. similar to an industrial robot
B. very expensive to buy
C. entirely new
D. able to go anywhere

30.Mr. Skora describes Arok as an experimental toy because it .
A. is controlled by a radio transmitter
B. is a convenience
C. serves no useful purpose
D. can perform only simple chores

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