[mandor]

Most of the robots in the manufacturing industry are following a pre-set sequence. Why do we call them a robot whereas most people would not call a dishwasher a robot?

I think what we (as a society) call a robot is a machine that has some degree of versatility: - an industrial robot can be programmed to achieve a different task (even if the sequence is pre-set, it is easy to set a different sequence for a different need), and the same kind of robots can be used to achieve many different tasks - a food processor can make many different recipes - a Roomba can adapt its behavior to the room (it has some degree of versatility because it can adapt to the conditions)

... but a dishwasher has a single purpose, which is why we usually do not call it a robot (even if it has sensors, actuators, some algorithms, etc.). If the dishwasher was also capable of cooking dishes, it would be more versatile and we would call this a robot (think of a humanoid torso that could do the dishes but also cook your eggs).

And the most versatile robots like a fully-featured humanoid is probably what we all have in mind when talk about robots.

Overall, we could say that we have degrees of versatility and therefore degrees of 'roboticity'. The lower level is the dishwasher, the highest level is the humanoid.

[taneq]

Good point on the multi-function thing. Specifically the hardware has to be adaptable - if you can add new, different functionality outside of the original domain just by changing the software, then that's necessary (but not sufficient on its own) to be considered 'robotic'.

[eli_gottlieb]

But then we get into the issue that consumer electronics products have been growing less and less programmable over time.