A HELPFUL TOOL OR A THREAT TO HUMANITY?

In line with the hivelearners topic for the first edition in this week, we are asked a few interesting questions about getting robots to help out doing most of our strenuous tasks. So without further ado, I’d dive into giving my responses to these different questions asked.

As we all know, our world is advancing so fast in terms of technology, particularly the use of artificial intelligence and these days, we are always seeking for more tasks to pass down to these robots to help us achieve without doing so much so we can get a lot of things done. Personally, the idea of having someone or something that helps to make my workload lighter is really nice but then, there is this fear of abuse which I just can’t ignore. And besides that, just imagine that something was to happen to the one or thing you have depended so much on for literally everything - it won’t be nice at all.

Robots are built to do a lot of things. Some are even trained to do things that we as humans even thought was only possible to do as humans. The truth is, at the surface, I’ll be very happy if I can get help from a robot when I need help but then, it won’t be for every thing. I know there are some times in our lives when we feel so overwhelmed by the workloads we have on our desk and at that time, having a robot to help will come in handy. But making the robot completely in charge of doing all the major chores in my home, I find that really wrong.

I know cooking sometimes can be stressful but there is this joy I find when preparing my meals myself and for those I care about. Surrendering that role to a robot all in the name of help is too much for me. Yes, it might help out doing the basic preparations to prepare a meal but I will be the one doing the cooking. With that in mind, if I have the money to get one, I might be tempted to consider the offer.

Having an inanimate object watch over my child? That is totally unacceptable by me. Taking care of a child is not easy but then, it is the sole responsibility of parents/guardians to protect, teach and nurture them until they are old enough. Giving that role to a robot will be a complete failure on my end particularly as a mother. Because peradventure the child gets fond of that robot more than you, which is definitely going to happen, it’s almost possible you have lost your chance to be your child’s number one.

There was a particular movie I watched that portrayed this point very well. I can’t remember the title of the movie but it was about an aunt who had to take her niece in after her parents passed. Due to how busy she was with work and her life, as a robot engineer, she built a robot that was around her age so they can play and become friends. At first, the child didn’t want the toy but after some time, she became fond of it. She stopped listening to her aunt and only does what the robot tells her to do. It wasn’t easy for her aunt to even control the robot too because she built it in a way that it can keep learning and advancing on its own.

Things got out of hand and the aunt learnt her lesson the hard way. As for the robot, she did a very good job protecting her niece but she was evil! She literally killed anyone that does her any atom of wrong. She really took care of the girl like her own child and that made the child love the robot so much until she was finally able to find out how evil the robot was on her own. The aunt regretted ever giving the robot full control over the niece and after she resolved that problem, she always made time for her niece.

So for someone who has seen a movie like that, it might be over exaggerating but I’d rather do my job myself and feel tired than ask for help from a robot to do some certain tasks. I mean, if the robot does all the necessary tasks, what then will be my job? Maybe watch movies all day, go on different vacations, sleep like a lazy animal or something. Nahh! I don’t think that’s what I want. I’ll figure out a better way to balance all the stress and still do what I have to do. If I ever need help, I have people that I can ask help from and if they don’t want to help, I’d rather pay someone to do some work for me.

Thanks for reading through. ❤️