Are Robots Taking Over the World?

Is technology getting too advanced and taking over the world? Are we creating robots to replace us? 

 

By looking at our evolution, we see that throughout our existence we have been creating tools and machines to help us in life and make things easier for us. We are now looking at the ultimate machine, a machine that is so powerful that has the capability of replacing us. What is that machine you ask? It is a robot, a.k.a. machines that will do anything we want without having to reward them, except for a little oil after a long day of work. These robots are evolving everyday, getting smarter and easier to use. Some might even have artificial intelligence which can be a good thing right? Or are they going to have a mind of their own and possibly try to take over the world. Will we be able to control them like in the movie iRobot? Was that just a movie... or was it a glimpse of the future?

Okay, enough with weird conspiracy theories, but it is true when I say that technology and robots are becoming better and better and may even take over some of our jobs in the future. It is beautiful to see what we have accomplished and all the things we have created to make our jobs easier. If you think about it in an economic way, this is a way for the government and large companies to save money. For example, let's look at all the mail carriers. There are hundreds of mail carriers in Manitoba. The average income is about 50,000 dollars a year, which comes out of the federal government's budget. The United States has been testing the delivery of packages using the wonderful invention of drones. They can fly high so no one can steal the packages and they can be delivered at your doorstep, just as the mail carriers do. They are fast and don't require a salary. In theory, there could be a company that would provide drones for each city and have them deliver. You might just need to hire one person per city to program the coordinates for the drones and a few people in the storage room to fill them up when they come back. Now looking at this in Brandon, we went from having around 60 employees in one city to having maybe ten. Now the 3,000,000 dollars that the government had to pay to their employees can be reduced! Let's say we pay each person 100,000 dollars a year and we have 10 people working, that's 1,000,000 dollars. I know what you are going to say; “Jaime, they would have to pay for the drones and the software too, so that's going to be more money”. The answer is yes, they would, but it would still be cheaper than paying salary in the end. Like I said, economically this makes a lot of sense but now there are 50 people unemployed because of it. 

Technology is very fun but also very scary. I really hope it doesn’t take over our jobs and it will be extremely hard to prevent that. As humans, we have something robots will never have and that's feelings. We are able to interact with others and make them feel good. We care and we take the extra steps to make others feel good. As much as technology is advancing, I do not think it could ever beat us. Yes, they are very helpful and useful but there is always going to be a need for human interaction. We are all unique and have different things to offer and we are the reason we make the world so interesting. As a future teacher, I assure you that I can provide the material information better than a robot ever could. I will encourage kids to be better and I can show them love and compassion. I will be their teacher, mentor, counselor, friend, and person they can trust. I can be all these things and more than all the technology in the world combined. I am not afraid of robots, they have nothing on us. I am curious to see what the world is going to look like in the future. We have been blessed to live in this age of technology. I can’t wait to see what they come up with so I can bring it into my class and enhance my lessons. I look forward to the day Will Smith has to fight the robots one more time.