This post was originally going to be the result of a culmination of recent events, but then I realised that it would be so long I wouldn’t sleep tonight (and no one would read it either). So I’m going to split this up over the next few days.
The first thing that happened to me in this chain of events was a robotics lecture I had last Wednesday in my Comp Sci class. One of the TAs was guest-speaking on her research; she’s developing an affordable semi-autonomous wheelchair for aged adults with cognitive difficulties (such as Alzheimer’s) in nursing homes. This is a very worthwhile project, but this isn’t what niggled me.
She told us about other kinds of robots that I’d never heard of, such as the Roomba. The Roomba is basically an automatic vacuum-machine that vacuums set rooms at set times without vacuuming the same spot over and over again. Some can also return to charge themselves at the end of a session. And then there’s this robot that’s being developed that can take a can of beer from the fridge and send it to you, sitting on your couch in front of the TV, without you ever having to get up.
Then there are very human-looking androids programmed to respond in certain ways to what you say to them. Personally, I find human-looking robots frightening (and I’m not the only one — apparently, there are studies on how the more human a robot looks, the more creeped out people get).
Or the military shooting robots strangely reminiscent of Gundam or other anime-type of giant robots with people sitting in them. I hadn’t even thought that anyone would develop these in reality, but I’m clearly not very imaginative.
And I really don’t know how I feel about all this. Technology can be such a marvellous thing — I have a deep appreciation for my hot water, electricity, and iPod — but I’m afraid of what people can do with it. We are so very good at destroying things and hurting each other. Things like the Roomba — or something more familiar, like washing-machines and driers — are wonderful time-saving inventions. But so is the beer-retrieving robot, and I have a much more intense dislike for that one. Where should one draw the line? I suppose it goes to show just how lazy we can get in our search to “save time” by getting technology to do the essentials for us. Sure, we save a lot of time, but what we do from then on? It’s very easy to just do nothing at all when there is very little left to do.
Imagine what a power outage would do on a society so heavily dependent on technology. Imagine not knowing how to use a broom and sweep because you always grew up with a Roomba. It’s not like we are very good at coping right now when there is a power outage — the more dependent we become on electricity, the more vulnerable we are as well. This is kind of a scary thought since we are not going to have electricity forever — possibly not even within our lifetime — if we gobble our resources at the rate we’re doing now. And then what? I don’t have basic survival skills; I wouldn’t know what to do if you dropped me in the middle of the woods right now.
This will sound strange, but I think I’ll teach myself and my kids basic things, like washing clothes by hand, or sweeping the floor with a broom. Just in case, you know, there is a power outage fifty years from now.
