Sexbots, laundroids and killer drones: The robot revolution got real in 2015

Evidence of humans fearing technology dates back totheIndustrial Revolution, when what came to be known as "technophobia"was first observed.

Eighteenth-centuryfactory workers worried thatthe development of new machines would take away theirlivelihoods and ability to survive.

As it turns out,some of those fears were justified.

Violent man-versus-machine conflicts saw members of the British working class destroying the devicesthat had replaced their jobs well into the 1800s, setting the stage for centuries of anti-robotrhetoric played out in books, movies and ideological movements.

Today, serious fears of a "robot revolution"are only just starting to crystallize for the average person but it's happening quickly,and spreading far beyond the confines of science fiction.

The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.- Stephen Hawking

The year 2015 featured stories ofrobotic technology, artificial intelligence, autonomous weaponryand what theexponential rate ofinnovationin these sectors could mean for humanity.

And ifforeboding statementsbyStephen Hawking, Elon Musk and other techindustry leaders this yearprove true,robot-human relations could take a nosedive sooner than many of us expect.

"If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable,"reads an open letter from July signed by Hawking, Musk, and Steve Wozniakamong others. "The endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow."

Here are some of the most "terrifying" news stories about robots from2015, as judged by the reactions of our audience members, staffersand the world at large.

They tookour jobs

Japanese data scientistspredicted in early Decemberthatmore than half of all jobs in Japan could be lost to machines by 2035.The same has been forecastfor the U.K., which could eventually see 50 per cent of its workers replaced by robots, according to a recentBank of England study.

"Why? Because 20th-century machines have substituted not just for manual human tasks, but cognitive ones too," said Bank of Englandchief economist AndyHaldaneof the study's results."The set of human skills machines could reproduce, at lower cost, has both widened and deepened."

Indeed, robots demonstrated an aptitude for jobs that fell far away fromfactory lines over the past 12 months.

Friendly humanoidreceptionists made their way from Japan to Canada this year, where they already hadjobs lined up atEdmonton's Fantasyland Hotel.

Robots also made headlines in 2015for working as bank tellers, department store greetersand even actors.

The health-care industry, too,continues to be rocked by newtechnologiesthat either promise,or already doeverything from take care of dementia patients and perform surgery tosniff out cancer in humans.

Tree planting robots, delivery drones, robot first responders,flying farm workers,robo-garbage collectorsand, of course, drivers, made waves as well.

Not even dogs are safefrom technological unemployment,thanks to the advent sheep-herding drones.

They didour chores (... on their own)

Robot chefs? Check. Robot yardworkers? Check.Robots that will wash, fold and put awayyourlaundry? Check.

It's hard to say much that's negativeabout machines that take away our most dreaded household tasks, and yet, the very idea of a robot butler still creeps many people out particularly now, with AI advancementsthat have seen botsteaching themselves how to do things without our help.

In August,Tesla unveiled afunctionalcharger prototypefor itsModel S electric car that can purportedly find a charging port,plug itself in, and juice thevehicle up without any sort of human assistance.

Another project deemed spooky on the viral web this year was Google's deep dive intoArtificial Neural Networksandthe ensuingimages of"dreams"machines were said to have had.

An EU-fundedproject that made headlines in August similarly featured a robot that was "teaching" itself to cook with information it foundonline.

And robots are nowbeing taughttodisobey humans for their own safety.

Our safety, on the other hand,isbeing tackled through research that involves robots punching humans.

They spied on us

Barbie isn't a robot, technically speaking, but righer up with a Wi-Fi connectedmicrophone system and... well, she isn'tnot a robot.

Mattel's Hello Barbietoy made waves earlier this year when privacy advocates learned that the "interactive doll" could record children's playtime conversations and respond once the encrypted audio had been transmitted to a cloud server.

The toymaker was criticizedfor thedoll's eavesdropping and data-gathering functions, but it was far from the first companyto put products with these capabilities into people'shomes.

Former Ontario privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukianwent after Samsungin February after it was discovered that its SmartTVscould recordprivate conversations taking place within homes and then share them with third-party services.

Internet-connected household devices such as baby monitors, fitness trackers and other "always-listening" tech products were also slammed as athreat toour privacyin 2015.

They started to look like us

You know what's scarier than aT-800Terminator'shyperalloy endoskeleton? Arobot that looks like one of us.

While they're nowhere near as lifelike as what was seen in the hit 2015 film Ex Machina, humanoidrobots withelastic polymerskin andcomplex facial motor systems brought us one step closer to seeing machines that are indistinguishable from humans on the surface, at least.

Some even described the latestiteration of Japan's Geminoid Fas "sexy" when she made her debut at theWorld Robot Conference in Beijing last month.

They threatened toreplace our lovers &families

A team of European robot ethicists made headlines in September forspearheading aninitiative aimed at stopping the development of sex robotsfor the purportedsake ofwomen, children and men everywhere.

"Introducing sex robots that could replace partners is the extreme of this trend, where we start to objectify our human relationships," said one of the project's organizersat the time."In five to 10 years time this will be a common product in any random sex store."

More recently,chatter has been building about the possibility of machines like Japan's adorable "emotional robot" Pepperand others like it being used to raisechildren or even act as a substitute for children (and/orfriends)

Once again, pets are not safe from being replaced in this context either.

They gotbetter atkilling us

One of 2015's most alarming robotnews stories was that of a machine at a German auto factory that killed a 22-year-oldhuman worker by grabbing and crushed him against a metal plate.

Also scary was the volume of storiesthis year aboutmilitary advancements in robotictechnology.

Lethal autonomous weapons systems(LAWS) were the subject of hot debate all year as lawmakers deliberated over how to regulaterobots that couldeventually have the ability to select, target and engage in deadly attacks without human intervention.

The United Nations will host athird meeting to discuss the issue with representatives from around the world inApril.

Meanwhile, technology companies and government agenciescontinue to build increasingly deadly machines that could one day replace humans on the battlefieldor rise up and kill us all, if you read some internet forums.

They made us inexplicably angry

Robot fans around the globe were outraged in August to learn that Canada's own "social robot"HitchBOT had been vandalized in Philadelphia and left without a head justtwo weeks into its first tour across the U.S.

Apairof YouTubepranksterslater claimed responsibility for a fake video of the attack, and while online users decried their actions, many people also appeared to delight in watching someone kickBoston Dynamics' Spot the robot dog.

Research released this year byOsaka University also indicated that violence against robots could be a growing issue particularly among children, who were observedhitting,kickingand verbally abusing a shoppingrobot insurveillance footage from aJapanese mall this year.

Rise of the cyborgs?

You know what they say:If you can't beat 'em, join 'em...though in this case, it would be more like "incorporate them into your body."

Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering and a noted futurist and inventor, made a startling predictionin June while speaking at aNew York conference.

"In the 2030s, we're going to connect directly from the neocortex to the cloud...We will be able to fully backup our brains."

Take that for what you will, but it's worth noting that 78 per centof the 147 predictionsKurzweilmade in his 1999bookThe Age of Spiritual Machineswere deemed"entirely correct" within 10 years.

Among those predictions were the rise of portable computing,wireless technology replacing cablesandthe distribution ofmusicin an entirely digital form.

Just saying.