Envision a world where everything little thing is done either by or with the assistance of a computer. There would be robot clerks, robot cooks, robot waiters, etc. Essentially it would be like The Jetsons. Whether or not this type of world is good or bad is still debatable.
Science fiction writers have long imagined futures where robots ran everything, and the typical outcome of this isn’t good. For whatever reason, we humans continue to develop smarter machines in the hopes of creating real Artificial Intelligence. Is this really the best idea? Are we not taking a large risk in assuming that AI, however we may stumble upon it, will be friendly? Intelligence does not go hand-in-hand with good nature. Mother Nature herself has revealed to us many species of insects and animals that are smart as well as vicious. Our own human society contains criminal minds that were geniuses. Sometimes it almost seems like the smarter they are, the crazier their actions.
How is it that we trust ourselves to develop machines that not only can think, but will decide to use that ability to help humans? We know we are not perfect. Therefore we should not assume the best out of our handiwork. Even true experts make mistakes sometime.
There is a push to develop robots into better robots. Those in favor of this want open source programming, meaning just about anyone would be able to take existing programs and tweak them to make them better or add new features. While this is a good thing as far as research and development are concerned, because it does help things move along faster, it is not necessarily the best thing for society right now. This is because humans are not ready to have a robot in every aspect of their lives.
Robots and computers were first built with the intention to assist humans. They were supposed to help us do our jobs faster, easier and better. As robots are becoming more and more sophisticated, more and more jobs seem to be disappearing. All the work is being done by the robots themselves, with very little assistance from humans, thereby eliminating the need for many jobs. At least this is the way it appears. There are still those who say that robots are not replacing humans, just being added to make humans more productive. I am thinking that the humans that currently do not have jobs beg to differ with the more productiveperspective. Some studies say that by 2025 robots will have taken millions of jobs from their human counterparts.
The job situation is the current reality with robots. Having a robot doing practically everything else is still a ways off, but a very real possibility in the future. Hopefully, the developers are smart enough to always include manual fail-safes that would allow a human to shut off the robot if necessary. The same goes for any computer-driven appliance we may use. There are so many things being developed right now that are being made to enhance our lives, but if you stop and think about the worst-case scenarios, it brings up some scary thoughts indeed.
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