• Question: Do you believe that robots could take over the world - doing jobs for us humans 24/7?

    Asked by hanzhodges to Huma on 5 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Huma Shah

      Huma Shah answered on 5 Nov 2016:

      Dear HanzHodges,

      Thank you very much for this important and topical question.

      In manufacturing, such as in manufacturing motor vehicles, robots have been building cars for some time now. All sorts of industries will use robots wherever they see it is more efficient to use robots and where robotics adds value to the the industry process. This means if robots save a company time and costs, and the robot improves the way it does things then robots will be used.

      However, a robot needs a lot of knowledge to do any task. For example, if you have a robot hoover can it know that it must not hoover up and destroy a small dropped valuable item, such as an ear-ring? Of course a human using a hoover could miss a tiny valuable item on the carpet too! However, a robot needs a lot of learning.

      Think about how children learn: human children learn by imitating, by instruction – such as in class from your teacher, and learning from experience. All these types of learning help us humans to self-improve. Robots are being designed for this, but one task, for example building a car. We humans can do more than one thing – for now! In the future you will have robots carrying out teaching for example, but would robots be good at marking your exam papers? Would they understand your answers?

      Robotics has a long way to go and we need new people coming into the field, not just to work in it, but to challenge how robotics is funded and who funds robot-building. Do we want a future of robot soldiers fighting wars so humans do not get harmed? Do we want a future where robots do all the jobs, such as receptionist? If so what happens to the people doing those jobs? Should they not be re-trained so they are part of the future world maintaining technologies, not just using them, or worse, left behind?

      The future of emerging technologies holds exciting opportunities, but it needs more people in it, especially females, to ensure robots don’t take over, they collaborate and cooperate with us in a better world.

      Apologies for the long answer, hope it was helpful, if not please do ask another.

      Huma

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