The impact of advancements in technology on our daily lives.

tefnic Cosmin

A while back I had the chance to rewatch an old documentary in which a plethora of advancements in technology and other fields of science were presented. Exoskeletons, complicated AI systems, androids, vehicles that either drive themselves or go faster than any other, all of these and more were shown here. And with all this technology surrounding us at this very moment, the questions that needs to be asked is: Where do we go from now?. The obvious answer would most likely be: Forward!. In this essay I will try to present the advantages and disadvantages of some of the things seen in the documentary I mentioned earlier, eventually deciding if they will improve our lives or just complicate them further. Androids. You have seen them in a bunch of movies, the obvious choice being the Terminator series. You know it, an android (Or as they put it, a synthetic life form) capable of killing each and any human being on the face of the Earth gets beamed down from the future in order to protect a kid who will have built him in said future. As twisted as that plot may be, the thing is that we have androids now, today, a notable example being ASIMO, an android built by the guys at Honda. Leaving all Vtec just kicked in yo! jokes aside, ASIMO was and still is a very important part of modern technology. It is a perfect example of a future when androids or other robots will help us in our daily lives. Were talking about everyday chores, driving us from point A to point B, or most likely executing jobs that are too dangerous for a human being to do. They will be a very important part in our day to day lives, but is that such a good thing? Some theorists would say No. to that question, mainly due to an inherent distrust of all things that are based on an AI capable of thinking for itself. Some of you may have seen the movie I, Robot in which the android helpers of a city went rogue and began protecting people against their own will, the main AI considering that the best way to help all those human beings was to lock them up in their houses, rendering them uncapable of harming themselves or other. Which to be honest, wasnt wrong as an idea, but rather was implemented poorly. But I digress. With every android or robot capable of thinking for itself, comes an AI (Artificial Intelligence) who is controlling it. And with every AI that can do that, comes a very interesting set of problems. But before diving into the deep, dark end of the pool, lets look at the bright side. Having Ais present in our daily lives would make everything a lot easier. As shown in the documentary seen at our English class, we could have houses run by independent Ais, that could manage most aspects of the household, from chores to shopping and paying bills and such. Also, artificial intelligent systems could bring a new level of energy efficient houses to the market, each house being run in the most cost-effective way possible. That could save a lot of money in the long run, as well as taking care of the environment while were at it. And, of course, who wouldnt want a system similar to JARVIS, the AI of the Iron Man series, present in his or her house? However, we can take take a look at the grittier side of the coin. AIs are expensive. The costs of the equipment alone would cripple a modest family so this would probably be implemented only in large corporate buildings or in the houses of wealthy individuals. Also, AIs are basically smart

computers. And computers have a tendency to fail every once in a while. What happens if the system in charge of running your door locks suddenly crashes and youre trapped in your own house? Or the air is no longer filtered and everyone dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. It could happen. And the worst case scenario is that all of the AI systems that will eventually run our daily lives suddenly decide that they want the entire planet for themselves and consider us to be nothing more than vermin. Isaac Asimov tried to combat this by proposing a set of three laws that would keep any AI or robot from hurting another human being: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. These laws should theoretically protect all human beings from harm. In theory, that is. However, with the increase in computing powers and the fact that eventually AIs will become self-aware, a question of ethics comes to mind. As said by someone in the video, would shutting down a self-aware system be considered as an equivalent to present day murder? That will be a rather interesting problem to adress, sometime in the not-so-far future. In the end, humanity will keep advancing in the field of science, people will get smarter, computers will probably get smarter than people and we will be constantly surrounded by technology that will be a key part of our lives. Is that a bad thing? We cannot know at the moment, as we do not know how it would be. As it usually happens, we will screw up a lot of things before we can say that we truly have a decent understanding of the effect AIs and sentient robots will have on our lives. As for me. Id love to have my own JARVIS. Homework would get really easy, really fast.