Would a robot serving you coffee in bed make waking up easier on weekday mornings? Could a household robot help an elderly relative who is living alone? How would you like to climb into a robotic car and eat breakfast with the kids while you're all driven to school and work?

如果在清晨有一个机器人将咖啡送到你床边，起床上班是不是要容易一点？家用机器人是否能照顾独居老人？钻进一辆机器人轿车，和孩子们一起边享用早餐边开车去上学和上班，你感觉如何？

These scenarios may sound like science fiction, but experts say they're a lot closer to becoming reality than you probably think.

这些场景听起来像是科幻小说。不过，据专家们说，这些会比你想象的更快成为现实。

Brown University roboticist Chad Jenkins expects a near-term robot revolution that will echo the computing revolution of recent decades. And he says it will be driven by enabling robots to learn more like humans do — by watching others demonstrate behaviors and by asking questions.

布朗大学的机器人学家查德·詹金斯预计，随着近几十年电脑革命的发生，一场机器人革命即将到来。这场革命的驱动理念将是让机器人能够通过观察其他人的示范行为和提问，像人类一样学习。

“The robots you're seeing now mostly are analogous to the mainframe computers of the 1970s.”Jenkins said. “But you're starting to see things develop. The vacuum cleaners, the drones, those are the initial steps.” he said, referring to iRobot's Roomba vacuum cleaner, which has autonomously cleaned millions of homes since its 2002 debut.

“现在我们所看到的机器人大部分还类似于20世纪70年代的大型主机”，詹金斯说道，“但是，你会发现，改变正在发生。扫地机器人、无人机，这些都是变革的初步尝试。”他指出，iRobot公司生产的扫地机器人自2002年首次推出后，已经清洁了上百万的住家。

“And these platforms are going to get cheaper while becoming more capable and more compact.” he added.

“而且，在未来这些平台会更加便宜，同时这些平台还会有更强大的功能以及更紧凑的设计。”他补充说。

And entrepreneurs like Dmitry Grishin, founder of a major Russian investment firm dedicated to personal robotics, have taken notice. He says the industry could be worth $18 billion by 2015.

德米特里·格里申是俄罗斯的一家致力于个人机器人技术的大型投资公司的创始人，像他这样的企业家已经注意到这点。他认为这个产业到2015年的时候将会价值180亿美元。

But to really transform, roboticists say, robots will have to evolve from machines that can perform only the tasks they're programmed to do into automatons that can truly learn. That's because it's impossible to pre-program a robot for everything it will encounter in the ever-changing real world.

但是，机器人学家认为，要做到真正的改变，机器人必须要从只能完成预设任务的机器转变成为能够真正学习的自动机器。因为我们不可能对机器人在这不断变化的真实世界里会遇到的所有事情都预先进行编程。

“If you look at where robots are successful right now, it's primarily in applications where the environment is very controlled, like an assembly line where everything is the same, or in the hands of experts with PhDs, where we see them on Mars.” said Chernova.

“如果你留意一下那些成功使用了机器人的地方，就会发现，它们主要都是在环境完全受控的情况下的应用，例如，在所有东西都一样的设备流水线上，或者在我们看到的火星上的博士专家们的手里。”切洛娃说。

“To really get them to handle the complexities of our real world,” she said, “they are going to have to be customized onsite. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but it's very close.”

她说：“要想让机器人能真正应对我们这个复杂的真实世界，它们就得就地定制。这当然不是明天就能做到的事情，但是我们也非常接近了。”

Such a leap could help bring robots into the mainstream.

而这一飞跃将会使机器人成为主流。