PRESENTER: Tonight our special guest is 'Mr Robotics', Steve Williams. If you've been to the cinema recently you will have seen some of Steve's most recent creations — terrifyingly realistic creatures designed to keep you on the edge of your seat. So, Steve, when did you start building your first robots? STEVE: Well, I was always fascinated with how things worked from a very young age. I would also want to see inside a toy to see what was happening in there. I'm sure it was awful for my parents. Every time they bought me a toy, I would have it in lots of little pieces by the end of the day. When I was about ten years old I started to work out how to put them back together again so they would work. And then I started putting different bits and pieces from different toys together and making completely new creations. PRESENTER: So you had an avid interest in electronics and building from a young age? STEVE: That's right. Obviously the robots I build now are far more advanced, and some actually have very important applications in today's world, from medicine to the military. I'm sure most of your viewers are familiar with the TV series "Robocop". Well, we now have 'Robo Docs'. We have been able to design robots that can perform certain kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimetre accuracy. Now, that Is a far greater level of precision than even the most skilled physician's hands could ever hope to achieve. It is expensive at the moment - but, as with most technology, it will become cheaper very quickly, and I would predict that the majority ol hospitals will have the equipment within the next ten to fifteen years. PRESENTER: You also mentioned military uses. Are you allowed to talk about any of those, or are they guarded secrets? STEVE: Well, of course there is an element of secrecy, but some of our robots you may even have seen on the news. One of the most dangerous jobs in the world, I would say, is that of bomb disposal experts. They have years of training and, for all their hard work, may be asked to sit - literally - on top of a huge bomb and defuse it without setting il off. With a robot that could be controlled as precisely as one's hands, a bomb disposal expert could control it from anywhere, even the other side of the planet, once he was hooked into the remote control unit by computer. It can also be used for the retrieval of landmines from minefields -and, of course, to defuse any explosive devices or materials where need be. PRESENTER: Well, that sounds like a real life-saving robot. But not all of your creations have labour-saving applications - some are for entertainment, right? STEVE: That's right. My company has been heavily involved in building robots for use in films. Developments in micro-electronics have come a long way ... so have plastics and synthetic materials. This means we have been able to produce almost completely lifelike creatures, with seemingly real skin, which are able to mimic animal-like behaviour. PRESENTER: I bet it's great to see the finished product on the screen. STEVE: It is a fantastic feeling to watch it really work, and to see that it did exactly what we wanted it to. PRESENTER: How long till we see the robots like the ones in "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" which look, walk, talk and think just like us? STEVE: Well, that is what we would call the ultimate in artificial intelligence. To create something that can act independently in changing environments, and make at least a few decisions for itself, is far more complex than originally thought. In the 60s and 70s we thought we would be there by the year 2000, but now the general feeling is that it may in fact be decades, or even centuries, before we reach that level of artificially produced intelligence.