Amazon Prime Air Drone:

As we continue to move on in our society, our technologies advance with us. We see them do many unimaginable things that we never thought could be possible every day, and they have become a very useful tool to us. Now that we live in a world where many different types of robotics exist and do many different tasks for us at will, there are some underlying worries that come with robotics and how important they have became. The screenshot on the right is a Amazon Prime Air drone, its purpose it to deliver packages at a very fast time span. Based of the article made by Rishabh Jain, “Amazon claims that customers could get their packages within 30 minutes of ordering”. Due to having fast shipping this makes the drone very useful. It also is promoted due to not burning fuel, which it is stated that “Amazon’s drone delivery would reduce its dependence on polluting vehicles.” There are clearly many positives to this robotic as we can see, but if it can deliver an item ordered online within that kind of time strain, this raises concern about delivery jobs, and if it will make human delivery obsolete. This could make many people lose their jobs, and if that happened this would be a tragedy.

Self-Driving Vehicles:

There are many different ways of transportation that we use on a daily basis. From riding a plane to driving a vehicle. We are currently looking into creating self driving vehicles, however this is another robotic that raises some eyebrows. Which is understandable, due to it being a big transition on our everyday lives. Although this would change our lives with personal transportation, this robotic would also effect jobs. In an article by Adam Hayes, he states that “If cars, trucks, and buses start driving themselves, people who earn their living from driving these vehicles will suddenly find themselves out of a job”. This is a big concern due to how many people rely on this type of job profession, there are millions of people who have to transport people and items for their job. If self driving vehicles became the new relevant robotic, this could be a big concern on the job market. Not only that, but if there are self driving cars there is potential of them being hacked. Which would result in a lot of causalities and other horrible incidents.

Cashiers:

Self-checkout counters are a type of robotic that is being used right now as we speak. They can be found within many different stores, as for the picture on the right, it is in Walmart. These are typically used when people have a smaller amount of items in their possession that they want to purchase, and they don’t want to wait in long lines with an actual cashier. These can definitely be a helpful alternative for people checking out at stores, but the concerns still remain when it comes to robotics, what kind of effect do they have on the job market. BBC News said “Don’t expect traditional self-service checkout to disappear”. It seems that there are many people who don’t like the whole self-checkout option, due the problems they tend to have. However, improvements are on the way to these types of robotics so this could change the way people feel about self-check outs. If so, this could be a problem for people who work as a regular cashier.

Refrences:

Jain, Rishabh. Amazon Prime Air: 5 Facts About the Compan’s Drone Delivery System. (2016, December 15) https://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-prime-air-5-facts-about-companys-drone-delivery-system-2460785

Hayes, Adam. The Unintended Consequences of Self-Driving Cars. (2019, October 31) https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/090215/unintended-consequences-selfdriving-cars.asp

BBC News. It’s a machine that many people love to hate. What will it take to improve the experience of the self-checkout? (2017, May 9) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170509-the-unpopular-rise-of-self-checkouts-and-how-to-fix-them

AI vs Humans in Video Games

The screenshot on the right shows a map for the capture the flag game mode in “Quake III Arena“. This game has recently been noticed as the first instance in which an AI possessed human-type capabilities in order to be victorious within the game against human competitors. Researchers claim this is due to a type of reinforcement learning, where the AI is testing different procedures and making note of what works and what doesn’t within competition. As discussed in class, in computer game formats like chess, the competing AI would use active reinforcement learning in order to be worth opposition. Maude Lavanchy, a writer published by The Conversation, notes in an article of hers, “Human players of capture the flag rated the bots as more collaborative than other humans” (par. 10). This statement expresses that robot’s were capable of working more like a team than human players and were able to strategically compete as a unit and defeat the opposing squad. The ability of artificial intelligence to develop a sense of teamwork promotes the ideology that it will be important for humans to develop skills based in interacting and communicating with robots so an alliance is capable of being established. The fact that robots are able to adapt and learn these human-type senses can be intimidating considering the same coincidences could happen in more interactive appliances.

The United States’ Resistance of Globally Embraced Features of Robotics

Although a majority U.S. consumers interact with, and make use of, industrial technology regularly, they are not comfortable with embracing the features that personal humanoid robots have to offer in their daily life; unlike countries such as Japan, European countries, China, and Korea. The countries listed make use of personal humanoid robots in occupations like educating youth, and assisting elderly due to the abundant population of older folk in some of the listed locations. The image on the right is a humanoid robot manufactured in Japan coined, ‘Kobian‘. This personal robot is designed to assist elderly people and enhance their host’s cognitive senses. This specific style of robot is also capable of providing emotional support and acting like a friend in a sense. The use of robots in this sense rather than in an industrial sense, such as for manufacturing products and goods, also creates job opportunities in the industry for people. American consumers resist the adoption of personal humanoid robots due to the fear of malfunction. Just as Wendy Robert’s notes, about the United States’ adoption of this style of robot, in her article published by Entrepreneur, “As a society we need to overcome the cultural hurdles that prevent us from taking full advantage of the promises of robot technology” (par. 12). The United States could benefit significantly from taking these approach towards robotics use at home and in the workplace, it’s just the fear of the unknown that’s holding them back.

Reaction to Humanoid Robots

I sent my mom a link to a video similar to the motion image displayed to the right. My mom interacts with her phone and other various forms of industrial technology on a regular basis, but I was never truly certain how aware she was of the fast-pace technological advancements happening within the robotics industry. She was oblivious to the current state of robotics. She found the video i sent her ‘frightening’ and ‘unsettling’, she also claimed that this style of robot must have been manufactured for circumstances of warfare. In our class lecture discussing troubling technologies, humanoid robots were expressed in the text as “having similar appearance to human bodies and faces”, as well as “similarities of movement and behavior to humans”; the robot depicted on the right shares each characteristic mentioned, with human’s, other than the physical appearance of face. Although many characteristics are shared and the robot has some human capabilities, the robot would not be classified as existing within the uncanny valley; the robot is easily distinguishable from a human and could in no way be confused.

References:

• Lavanchy, M., Joshi, A., & Behavioural Economics. (2019, August 6). An AI taught itself to play a video game – for the first time, it’s beating humans. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/an-ai-taught-itself-to-play-a-video-game-for-the-first-time-its-beating-humans-118028.
• Roberts, W. (2015, April 22). The World Is Embracing Robots But America Keeps Them at Arms Length. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245301.