Autonomous Helicopters Build a Building...

Well, sort of. Warren Y. sends along this demonstration of autonomous (i.e., no human controlling them) helicopters (really, quadracopters – much easier to control) building (well, assembling) a building (ok, an attractively designed pile of styrofoam blocks).

Snarking aside, it's really quite an achievement for these roboticists – and it probably is a glimpse of what the future will bring us.  It's perfectly conceivable that within a reasonable amount of time (say, a decade or two) we'll see robots that can actually perform many of the tasks that construction workers do today.  For example, I have no problem imagining a robot that could do a great job at block masonry.