The age of robotics paired with artificial intelligence ('A.I.') has arrived – and while some may still fear this means that humans will soon be jobless and rudderless, or even driven to extinction, others point to the ability of these two revolutionary tools to bring about a prosperous, peaceful world.
The word “robot” was not used in literature until 1920, when Czech playwright Karel Capek wrote the play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) that debuted a year later and made it to New York City in 1922. Capek, however, credited his brother Josef for adapting the Czech word robota (drudgery).
In his collection of short stories I, Robot, Isaac Asimov laid out the three laws of robotics. They must be programmed to not harm humans; second, to obey human commands (except when they conflict with law 1); and to protect their own existence.
Asimov, who was also a biochemistry professor, used his stories to explore the ethical applications of artificial intelligence and robotics, yet he also acknowledged that, as robots are created by fallible humans, they are capable of even deadly errors if not properly monitored.
More recently, fiction and nonfiction writers have written about the potential for modern robots programmed with artificial intelligence to achieve “singularity,” surpassing human intelligence and potentially deeming humanity an obsolete species. That, notably, was the theme of the final two movies in Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible series.
Three years ago, a Forbes Technology Council article boasted that advances in robotics and AI had already made it possible to create machines [including Siri and Alexa] that can perform tasks with incredible speed and accuracy. Robots and AI, said author Thomas Helfrich, will complement rather than replace humans, helping us get work done faster and more accurately.
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Robots have long been used in manufacturing, healthcare, space exploration, and autonomous vehicles. Today’s AI-infused robots can do much more than their earlier counterparts, though that can also include delivering packages and flipping burgers as well as assisting in surgeries and doing high-risk chores in the mining and construction industries.
Forbes’ glowing report suggested that humanoid robots can help humans learn even as they do household chores – but they can also help us address macroeconomic issues such as energy insecurity, climate change, and healthcare challenges.
By both performing tedious, repetitive tasks while at the same time teaching us how to better protect the natural environment, they can help humans create a more sustainable future.
Best of all, said Forbes, robots and AI offer us the promise of a more equitable and just society. Elon Musk, who famously forecasted that “there will be tens of billions” of humanoid robots serving humanity by 2040, says that everyone will want to have their own personal C-3PO or R2-D2, but even better.
One of the leaders in the development of humanoid robots, Foundation Robotics founding CEO Sankaet Pathak, says that his creations are addressing critical challenges – defense, manufacturing, logistics, and labor -- those that stand in the way of expanding the scope and scale of human consciousness.
Without the automation that robots bring, he contends, expansion will continue to come at the cost of human lives.
In a recent interview, Pathak admitted that when he started Foundation Robotics, he was confronted by two big criticisms – that his machines would replace humans and that they would take away from humanity the very meaning of life. But soldiers and factory workers alike were so thrilled with their new “assistants” that they had their photos taken with them.
One reason is that the jobs being automated are those with a 100% turnover rate – jobs no one cherished.
“When I started Foundation Robotics,” Pahtak said, “...my goal was to build technology that makes life self-sustaining for humans."
"Robots provide infinite labor, energy, and resources. Fleets of robots can build and defend cities and operate in battlefield environments. They can also perform most inspection and maintenance repairs for the U.S. military, especially in areas that put humans at risk and all the while doing so in austere environments, and across a wide range of temperatures".
Rather than replace humans, continued Pathak, robotics can encourage us to reverse declining birth-rates that are moving the planet toward a catastrophic end of human civilization. That means that, rather than reconfigure our surroundings to accommodate machines, our machines must evolve to navigate human spaces.
That philosophy led Pathak to focus on fleet coherence – a networked system in which each robot in a fleet is aware of the tasks and status of other fleet robots in real time. This system enables the robots to share information and coordinate their actions dynamically to optimize resource allocation and task completion across a project.
“Unlike Tesla’s, our robots react to changes in the local environment, even when bullets are flying. They understand the physics of the environment, and that sets us up better for defense applications,” said Pahtak.
And this model also works in factories.
“The future that was in ‘Star Trek’ is what we now expect,” said Pahtak. “My hope is that the purpose and focus of humanity moves forward into the pursuit of things each of us is curious about – traveling, discovering and experiencing new things, exploring the big, beautiful planet on which we live – and beyond.”