Within a decade cars could start driving themselves on highways and in less than 25 years automakers may be producing vehicles “smart” enough to chauffeur passengers through city streets, Stanford computer scientist Sebastian Thrun predicted at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The convergence of key technologies hint that, within decades, robots may be able to perform tasks that were hitherto only fiction. These advances include:

— cheap, effective sensors that substitute for biological senses;

— sophisticated software and computers that approximate nerves and brains; and

— the ability to manufacture tiny mechanisms to mimic muscles.

San Francisco State University professor David Calkins, looked the furthest ahead, suggesting that robots would eventually become personal companions, answering questions, serving as butlers, even reading children bedtime stories.

Calkins said life-like robots could be used in elder care, performing routine medical functions like dispensing pills in hospitals, and serving as home care providers. He hinted that robot companionship could one day go, as teens once said, all the way, for “geek bachelors who can’t get a girlfriend.”