More about Artificial Intelligence
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Some experts think that 2100 will be the year when robotic
intelligence will surpass human intelligence.
For instance the futurist, Ray Kurzweil predicted in his
book, ’The singularity is near: when humans Transcend Biology’ that computers
will become as smart as humans by 2029 .He also predicted that by 2045
computers will be billions of times more powerful than an unaided human
intelligence.
It’s no secret that
the level of automation across sectors has increased highly in the past few
decades.
In this context two streams of thoughts become significant ,
raising two different questions:
1 Will new technology will give rise to mass unemployment as
robots take jobs away from humans?
2 Will robots create demands for new types of jobs for
humans?
American economists, Jeffrey Sachs and Laurence Kotlikoff
are two experts who feel that such concerns are not without relevance in the
present day. They ask a significant question: What if machines are getting so
smart that they no longer need unskilled
labour to operate?
They point out how smart machines are already doing jobs
which are entirely human domains until recently –like collecting highway tolls,
checking customers out at stores, taking blood pressure ,giving directions,
answering phones , printing documents, flying planes ,teaching kids, etc. They
also point out how this list is not at all exhaustive.
The term ‘robot’ although easily defined as ‘A machine
capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially
one programmable by a computer ’ ,is becoming a rather vague and abstract term.
It is difficult to categorize all smart technologies under the same umbrella.
Are you a fan of transformer series? Does the fact that your
car is just a car bother you? Say no more, Hemji soft japan has created the first ever, real
transformer, which transforms from a robot to a car that can be driven.
Applications of this concept are still to be tapped into but who cares about
all that when you can have an Autobot parked in your garage! The future is
going to be fun.
It is predicted that in the next 5 years, robots will take
over the majority of the security and
peace keeping positions. Robots are already seen guarding malls in Silicon Valley.
Surveillance robots have been used by the police for a long time now, and
there’s even more prototypes available at your disposal nowadays. This is a
field government is investing heavily in to reduce the risk to human life.
Walking sticks and wheelchairs will be a thing of past. People
with disabilities will have the option of choosing from a plethora of
prosthetics which could be metallic or 3-D printed. The exoskeleton concept
takes this one step further. These exoskeletons would not only help people with
disabilities but could even enhance normal human capabilities. These system can even help paralysed patients walk.
However the major drawback of this major concept is that it isn’t available to
everyone due to being highly expensive. Advances will need to be made in order
to bring down the cost of production and make them accessible to everyone,
especially those in need.
Scientists have now come up with tiny ingestible foldable
pieces of equipment that can be swallowed by patients. On reaching the stomach,
these robots dissolve and unfold themselves, to be controlled by magnetic waves
by a technician and perform surgeries from the inside. Take about a tiny Trojan
horse . 
These micro-bots can be sent to various organs to perform
required surgery and after the job is done, they are excreted by the body
harmlessly.
Surgery is a protocol that is followed by a surgeon with an
iron grip and nerves of steel. If done right , it could pretty much bring a
person back from the brink of death. However it is a protocol and protocols can
be followed to a T by a robot if programmed correctly. It all comes down to
whether you would trust a lifeless machine to operate on your body. Turns out
robotic arms are pretty precise in carrying out such surgeries. In the times to
come, surgeries could probably be performed entirely by robots. As a matter of
fact , these robots have great precision and can perform very fine incisions
and have a great application.
Imagine a factory run entirely by robots and machines. You
would no longer need to worry about
human error and only resources would factor in when calculating output
efficiency. It is predicted that robots would take up more than 50% of human
jobs by 2050.
Smart cars are already a thing. There is a complex algorithm
which measures the risks involved while driving a vehicle and drives it
accordingly. Tesla is a flag ship company for this technology. Robots could
even replace the jobs of commercial pilots and we would never have to worry
about our flights getting delayed. It is a kind of scary in a way , to imagine
a world where jobs as important as running trains and flying planes are done by
robots .
As we saw with the TeacherBot before, teaching with the help
of robots not only makes the education cheaper , it also makes it more
accessible. Teacher Bots would be a good alternative to the traditional
teaching method. It involves interaction
with the class and it just might be the direction that school of tomorrow are
headed to .
This might be one of the most hard hitting after effects of
the great robot age. The great Mark Twain once said ,”I don’t know what the
third world war would be fought with , but the fourth world war would be fought
with stones and sticks .” As warfare becomes more advanced , it is impossible for the countries not to want
to harness robots. After all, you’d rather send a lifeless machine to war than
an actual living being. There have already been a lot of prototypes of battle
bots. Government spend a tonne of money
on developing technology to make killer machines which will rain terror on the
opponents. This is not an outcome any true lover of robotics would want, for
robots to become lifeless killing machines. But history is proof that war is
inevitable.
Robots are already replacing humans in pharmacies in the UK.
Robots are used to conduct and take readings for laboratory experiments. A busy
pharmacy can be run by a single robot, which can give customers the right
medication via a conveyer belt based on their prescriptions. Robots are also
great for taking precise measurements and calculating errors. For these
reasons, they make for amazing lab assistants. Add a nice Siri-like A.I. to the
robot and BOOM! You’ve got your own pharmacist Jarvis.
We have already seen examples of robots that can reach nooks
and crannies us human cannot. Robots may perhaps find their most important
application in the field of explosion, especially space exploration. Robots
have a huge advantage over us in that they don’t have any biomedical
requirements. They can survive their most deadliest of environments as long as
their circuits don’t fry and the heat and weather conditions do not damage
their exterior. The explorer probes sent to planets like mars and Jupiter are
perfect examples of how robots are of great use to mankind. The first thing to
set foot on the mars was not a human but a robot designed by us. Robots are, in
a way, an extension of humanity itself. The bond between robotics and humanity
will yet take us to places we have never been to before.
The use of robots comes with a few alarming questions as
well. How much can you depend on something to get the job done? How long till
robots start writing songs and directing plays? The world is on its toes since
the nuclear bomb came around. We always seem to make newer more punishing
weapons of mass destruction. So we can’t overlook the human aspect of things
when it comes to robotics. We have to teach the more complex ones all the good
things that make us human (and may be prevent the judgement day while we are at
it).
