By Sharmini Jayawardena
Being in the throes of an age when NASA has blasted off a spaceship🛸 with a robot geologist to Mars (phys.org) https://m.phys.org/news/2018-05-nasa-robotic-geologist-mars-super.html, it won’t be long before many of our now comfortable jobs are replaced by robots🤖
Would it be a better experience to face a robot immigration officer at the entry point to a country or a human one❓
The main advantage in facing a robot will be that there will be no bias involved in the robot’s dealings with you. But, will this always bring you a good result?
The human personality is the most complex part of the make up of the human brain🧠 or one of the most complex. If we remove this factor from our daily lives, won’t we be deleting a very important and interesting component of what it is to be human and what it is to enjoy being one?
The robot as it is, can imitate only a rudimentary part of human abilities. In its most colorful and multi-faceted areas, the robot fails markedly. In human to human interaction there is no doubt that the subtleties of the human personality proves to be a salutary factor to a large extent.
But, when it comes to issues like race, color and differentiation by speech, the human may respond in a bias that is detrimental to the human in the most part. The best way to cut through these problems would be to have robots manning or rather, roboting, the posts!
If a robot proves to be as friendly and lovable as that in the movie🎥, The Bicentennial Man, acting Robin Williams, I have no doubt the scales will tip towards the robot.
There will be many ways in which humans will need to adjust and change to accommodate and appreciate the robot, in a humane way, in human to robot interaction.
We will have to be more caring of the robot and not take them for granted as we have sadly done in our human to human interactions‼
May be our characteristics or human qualities like kindness and compassion will extend to encompass the robot in a way that will change their own make up. We have lived too long, ignoring or neglecting the true power of our humaneness, that we are fast losing what it is, being essentially human.
In an age of robots, will we be forced to become truly human? Or will we be more prone to being less so?
Definitely, in this age when we will be dealing with robots, we will be looking at ourselves afresh, in a new light, where we will face our likeable ways that will benefit all of us while making the lives of robots livable.
The last time I encountered an advanced robot was at the airport checkout, Quanta’s (Queensland and Northern Territories Airline Services), counter, Melbourne Domestic Airport, in 2017. It was a breeze. I was amazed at how smooth the entire process was. Checking in my boarding pass, weighing in and checking in the luggage, all done✅ automatically. All appearing on a screen, allowing the machine to scan the first page of your passport and indicating you to clear the barcode area of your luggage tag to be scanned, so that the robot could pass you through.
Now, we have self service at supermarket check outs as well, becoming a common feature.
Then, we are almost there with driver-less cars‼️
Automation has gone on for many years in the automobile and other assembly lines.
As we move towards the age of robots, we need to be accepting and loving of our new species, and not treat them in the sad and horrendously cruel way in which we have been treating our animal🐅🐎🦬🐄 friends‼
