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When Goldie Nejat began developing robots in 2005, she spent much of her time knocking on doors to let people know how her robots worked but few showed interest.

“But now, it’s different,” says Nejat. “People calling from around the world ask when my robots are going to be ready.”

Nejat’s robots are made to fill an increasing need: care-giving for the old. The population of the people over age 80 will be 426 million in 2050, three times larger than that now.

Some have worried that care-giving robots might make human interaction (互动) less and cause more humans to lose their jobs. “But the purpose is to support human care, not to replace it,” says Brian Scassellati. He has tested robots with different patients, and found that daily interaction with robots can help children with autism spectrum disorder (自闭症谱系障碍) improve social skills.

Well, of course, more robots have served the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Cleaning robots can clean 8, 600 square meters of indoor large public areas such as staff area, athlete area and competition hall. And cleaning robots can adapt (适应) to large-traffic crowds and continuous (持续的) work. For those who are not wearing masks (口罩) in the area, reminding robots will come forward to remind them to wear masks. What’s more, delivery (配送) robots have entered the main media center restaurant, where each dish is made by robots. After the cooking is completed, the robots will take it to the ordering guests.

As a field grows, scientists try to understand human-robot relationships better. Do robots offer advantages because they don’t have feelings and don’t give opinions? “One thing is clear,” Scassellati says. “Many types of robots are quietly serving the people and the need for that will increase in the future.”