JARVIS, Tony Stark’s fully functional AI, was very crucial for Avengers, but what would have happened if JARVIS would have developed a negative side? What if he would have built a body structure and decided to take over the world? Actually, JARVIS was so powerful he wouldn’t even have needed a physical structure, he was first in line commander of all the security. I first started thinking about this when in October this year Sophia, a robot created by David Hanson, the founder of Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship, at the Future Investment Summit in Riyadh, Sophia is the first robot ever to have a nationality. Movies are slowly becoming our reality.
We need robotics; there are some jobs that are better done by robots than by humans. Most robots are used to do repetitive actions or jobs, they can also do jobs that are too dangerous for humans. The thing is at the end a robot is a machine, it can be repaired, replaced and upgraded. Also, robots are expendable, hazardous jobs or jobs that put humans at risks like going in a building that’s on fire or bomb disposal are more suitable for robots than humans. We live in fear that if robots take over major job roles humans will be unemployed, the jobs we are talking about here are tasks like manufacturing automobiles, welding, and sanding or polishing and the likes, but jobs like teaching can also be done by robots. Almost everything that can be termed as a job could be possibly done by robots. Northeastern University’s president Joseph Aoun, the author of the book Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, warns that within the next two decades, 50 percent of the jobs we know in industrialized nations are going to disappear, and an even more staggering 70 percent of jobs in emerging economies will vanish. The consultancy McKinsey estimates up to 800 million workers globally could possibly be displaced by robotic automation by 2030. Some jobs will change dramatically, while others will disappear altogether.
So in the years to come it is highly possible that people will be replaced by some machines but it will also be the case that people and robots are working alongside each other. We need to focus more on the human aspects, the study of human nature and human affairs is called humanics, the scope of humanics is large, we really are in a dire need to update the way we see education, for example navigating all the information generated by machines will need people with data literacy, we will need more data analysts and data scientists. We will need to able to communicate with these machines in their language so coding, computer science, electronic engineering, machine learning are some fields that will boom. Another important thing will be being able to do things that machines emulate for the foreseeable future. We have always adapted to the change, and change is a necessity for development. Mankind has so much to learn, so much to explore, robots are useful for space exploration as well.
Once robots are developed to the extent that they can take over all production and manufacturing work, we will get more time to invest in things that don’t revolve just around our basic needs. Today we are still at an initial stage when it comes to AI and robotics but with the fast-paced development soon, we will be able to solve the problem of ‘how to deal with the possibility of robots taking over the world’, after all, we want to create JARVIS, not ULTRON. The question that needs more attention than robots taking over the world is, what will happen if there are more humanoid robots, like Sophia, will we have to make adjustments and consider their rights too? In a world where people of colour, minority groups, women, LGBTIA+ community don’t have enough rights and freedom, the questions of rights of robots are misfitting, let us treat all humans equally first, and create an ideal, safe and feminist society. Sure then it can also maybe inclusive of robot rights.
Movies like Wall-e and Matrix have taught us a lot. We can’t let machines overpower us, if we have the right motives then maybe it wont be so bad, if you think because robots will be doing all your work, all that’s left for you to do is sit around lazing and get addicted to a lifestyle where you just watch television and eating, then you are essentially saying you were born to work. I think mankind is born to do more than just the production and manufacturing of things. Robots will make your life easier not just because it will do all your basic tasks, your life will be easier because while you do some more important work you will not have to worry about all the miscellaneous tasks you have to worry about now. This is why the study of humanics is important.
Humans have achieved a lot since evolution as we know of, but our lives need to have more meaning than worrying about sustenance. Ever since life started there has been only one goal, we need to pass knowledge, our cells divide and multiply again and again, even when we reproduce the goal at the most basic cellular level is to be able to survive and pass on our knowledge that we already had and that we learned in our lifetime. Life was given to us a long time ago, it wasn’t just so we could wake up do our jobs, earn, survive, reproduce and die. We are still living in a very primitive way, our entire life revolves around our primitive urges, there are a few things like learning and reproducing that are essential, they are also what makes us humane. However, the world will surely be a better place if we are able to create beings that are machines or AIs that can take over so that we can get rid of our current lifestyle and focus on what really matters.
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