Since the advent of computers, there have been tons of great and advanced developments in technology, the most fascinating of them being the creation of Artificially Intelligent robots. These robots are intensive, influential machines with human-like, rather human-made intelligence to help us humans out in doing various tasks, ranging from our day-to-day chores to highly risky or laborious tasks. So now the question that arises quite frequently is that – will robots remain this helpful and friendly in the future too, or will they turn into anti-human threats to our society? Well, the answer to this critical question is rather complicated, and to get to any conclusion, we must first discuss in what ways do robots benefit us, and in what ways could they harm us. Many of us consider robots to be our friends, which is indeed pretty obvious as these man-made bots help and benefit us in many ways, just like our friends help us out. Robots make our lives much easier. At our personal level, we have self-driving cars, which are controlled by artificially intelligent systems and which do not require human drivers at all (so our money which we used to pay to our drivers is saved), robots can suggest and recommend us some diets, yoga, soothing music, entertaining web series or some cool stuffs to shop based on our preferences and past activities. In recent times there has been a development of those robots that help us in monitoring our mental and physical health and fitness, and our sleep cycles, and also help us overcome depression and anxiety. These artificially intelligent bots even help us in our household works like cleaning, dusting, watering plants in our garden from time to time and assisting in cooking food, which indeed would save a lot of our time which we of course can use in some productive activity. Also, these robots remind us of our daily schedule like to attend meetings, doing homework (they help us in completing our school HomeWorks and preparing for tests too), to take ‘me time’ out for ourselves, or to take medicines on time, provided they have been asked to remind us of all these things. If you ask your friend or a relative to remind you to do something, for a moment they may forget but these man-made bots won’t. Whatever job has been assigned to these bots, they will accomplish it for sure and certain without any fail, provided if they do not encounter any technical issue. These bots are employed in medical diagnostics of various diseases, and also as surgeons or assistant surgeons to human doctors in various medical procedures, or even as chemists. These robots can be used to keep the patients entertained or to suggest suitable medications to them as per their database for the diagnosed diseases. These robots can perform various tedious and laborious industrial tasks like lifting heavy loads, or act as a security mechanism for the workers at a construction site, or to check the quality and estimate the budgets of some projects going on at a large scale. One of the most important tasks in which robots can be employed include safety – robots can be recruited for security purposes in banks, gardens, houses, offices, and even at the construction sites for the safety of the workers. Nowadays robots are even recruited as traffic police or the general police cops, as well as in the military (either to create military weapons, or to serve as a soldier or to assists the soldiers) and they’ve been doing all these tasks quite satisfactorily. Industrially also robots help a lot in the production work, making it cost-effective. But now people may wonder, if robots are of so much help to us, why would they be our enemies? Even though robots are made by humans themselves, people do have this perception that robots can take over human employment and human race, and if these technologies get into the hands of wrong persons, they can programme the robots to cause destructions, wage wars or nuclear/ military/ cyber-attacks. Well, while there are some professions like teaching and education, harvesting and agriculture, research and experiments, salesmen and vendors, providing physical labour in the industries, production of goods, loans and tax collections, pharmacies, domestic helps, lab assistants, data analysts and logistics, surgeons and doctors, Customer service executives, intelligence department (of military), and a lot more wherein robots can potentially displace human beings in times to come – probably because employing robots in these professions would be budget-friendly for an employer and also robots can work non-stop (till they are charged or functional) without requiring holidays or paid or sick leaves, or any health and life insurances, etc, we need not worry as there are many jobs that require human creativity, experience, leadership and ethics, which robots can certainly never match. These jobs that probably won’t be replaced by robots include designers (graphics/ jewellery/ fashion/ products), innovative solutions and inventions, project heads and supervisors, human resource managers, politicians, lawyers and judges, event planners, chief executive officers, software developers, customer services (as some customers still prefer human assistance), authors, poets, actors, singers, etc. Also, as more and more robots would be developed, more scientists, programmers, robot-wellness doctors and ethical trainers for the robots would be required. So yes, in the near future robots will replace humans in various positions though some jobs can’t be replaced by robots and more jobs will also be created, and those people who will well-equip themselves in the technical skills like those required to handle robots would have more employment advantages than the others. However, robots can harm humans if they get bugged due to some technical reasons and as mentioned earlier as well, if they get in the hands of people with evil mindsets. But, does all this make robots our enemies- maybe yes or maybe no- again even after all this discussion, it becomes complex to arrive at any conclusion. Anyways, if these robots are programmed appropriately and positively with well- defined commands to help people, and if there are very less chances of these getting affected by any sorts of technical issues or even viruses, spywares or malwares, then these robots are good to go hand in hand with humans and would indeed turn out to be our great friends in that case in the times to come, and whether they will have enmity with us depends on time, and the robot- developers and programmers, of course.
By Gargi
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