• Question: Do you think robots could eventually take over the world or replace humanity?

    Asked by Fragle10209 to Alan, Ciorsdaidh, Lauren, Leonie, Martin, Neil, Shuo on 11 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Alan McCue

      Alan McCue answered on 11 Mar 2018:

      Oh so your worried the matrix may actually happen :-)?!? Firstly, good film! Secondly, I don’t know, but we are getting better and better at making robots and machines. We still find it difficult to make these robots intelligent. What do I mean by that? Well, we can teach a robot to complete a task but we can’t easily get a robot to make a decision without our infleunce. So we haven’t yet reached the level of artificial intelligence. However I am nto an expert in this area and only know what I read…

    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 12 Mar 2018:

      A lot of people are worried about this but at the moment robots have off switches! The one issue we have to be prepared for is that robots will replace people in some jobs. This will have a big impact on employment. Just like when the mines and shipyards closed. By getting good qualifications at school, perhaps going to university, you equip yourself for this potential future.

    • Photo: Neil Keddie

      Neil Keddie answered on 13 Mar 2018:

      I don’t think this will happen, as long as we make sure that as we develop robots and AI that they follow basic principles (such as Asimov’s Rules of Robotics) so they cannot harm humans, and we need to make sure that they always have a kill switch. This should prevent any rise of the machines…
      In terms of increasing automation throughout the world – this is already happening at an amazing rate, and will continue to do so. There are many situations where this is good, but some where inevitably skilled jobs are lost. I think our role is to make sure that there are always new tasks for the robots to do / things to make, so that should be our focus as a world going forward.

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