This video showing a very speedy recycling robot has surfaced:
(AI and robotics gets you to fast recycling, all right)
However, there is still stuff left on that conveyor belt; who's going to sort that stuff? Humans, that's who, relying on what Harry Harrison in his 1956 short story The Velvet Glove called human object recognition.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/1/2017)
Mika The Robot-Boss
'the robot-boss was busy at the lip of the new lode instructing and egging the men on to greater speed...' - David C. Cooke, 1939.
Sensitive, Soft Robot Skin
'...tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.' - Harl Vincent, 1934.
Finger Sensors For Robot Hands
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!' - Ray Cummings, 1931.
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