Robots have been on my mind quite a bit recently.

Maybe the DVD set of the summer television series "Extant" is to blame. Spoiler alert for those who have not watched the series: Ethan, the robot boy at the center of the story, saves the world. By my last count, I have watched the final episode of the season half a dozen times in recent weeks.

Maybe Honda's Asimo, the robot for whom the car I drive is nicknamed, is to blame. Videos of the white robot jumping, running and pouring drinks shown on the website http://asimo.honda.com/ can entertain yours truly for minutes at a time.

And then there is news coverage of Google Cars, the driverless cars piloting their way through traffic in parts of California and other locations. According to reviewer John Markoff, writing about the cars in the "Smarter Than You Think" series in The New York Times, driverless cars may have the potential to "transform society as profoundly as the Internet has."

Many of you likely have a robot of sorts in your pocket, purse or backpack. When Siri retrieves the name of a band that performed a one-hit wonder that was your favorite song of all time when you were in middle school or directions to your in-laws' new home, are you not more than a little thrilled? Erick Kain, a Forbes contributor, quoted tech writer Alexis Madrigal in calling Siri a combination of the new type information bot with the old type human helper bot to create a personal assistant at one's beck and call at all hours.

Personally, I would like a robot to fold socks. I am not a fan of folding socks.

You might say I am a fan of robots. Watching Asimo dash across the stage in a video on his webpage is thrilling; however, where he is going in such a hurry remains a mystery. And there is a certain optimism and promise in the technology. Robots are already used in dangerous situations where humans should not go, such as assessing the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Robots shot photos in damaged areas at Fukushima. Robots clean floors, dispose of bombs and tool about the surfaces of planets far, far away, snapping photos and collecting samples.

However, life with robots may not be as rosy as the (near) future may have us believe.

On March 14 protestors rallied in Austin, Texas, at the celebrated South by Southwest festival to warn of a future where robots could replace humans such as in the 1920 play "R.U.R," described as a "futuristic nightmare" by writer Robert Malone, or wage war on humans in the tradition of sci-fi movie benchmarks such as the original "The Terminator."

Preston Cone, a spokesperson for the protest group Stop the Robots, is quoted in news coverage as saying, "We like technology. Technology is a good thing, but we don't want it to take advantage of us."

Isaac Asimov, a profilic writer in the science-fiction genre, often is credited with conceiving the blueprint by which robots are expected to behave, a robot code of conduct of sorts, in his fiction. Asimov's three laws of robotics are "a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm; a robot must obey the orders given to it by a human being except where such orders would conflict with the first law; a robot must protect its existence, as long as this does not conflict with the first or second law." Or, as Dr. John Woods instructs his robot son Ethan in the "Extant" television series, "Be kind. Be helpful. Be trustworthy." Such laws of conduct may be worth following for robots and humans alike.

In his 2004 book titled "Ultimate Robot," writer Malone describes robots as being seen either as "humanized machines or machinelike humans," noting humans like to create beings in our own image.

In Connecticut's Westport Library, robots Vincent and Nancy look like children and are on hand to encourage library visitors to get to know robots. According to a video article on the Wall Street Journal website, the small robots joined the library to help teach coding and computer programming skills. Vincent and Nancy can kick balls, talk and do Tai Chi, among other skills, with designs on helping humans hone new practical skills like coding.

If Vincent and Nancy can be coded to fold socks, I am in.

April Peterson

editorial assistant

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press