Robots also Jekyll and Hyde?

There are always two sides to anything in life – good and bad, ugly and beautiful, right and wrong and so on. Our life exists in duality and this now extends to another creation of mankind, the robot. Till now we have heard of robots being created for handling a lot of manual work, right from mopping and cleaning the floors to working on the factory floors. There is now a robot which even has emotions!

But in the midst of all this, there is rising fear that just as there are robots to do all good things, we may soon see discoveries where robots are used for undertaking evil jobs too. Until now, robots have largely been used in manufacturing, particularly in the auto industry. They have mostly been “dumb robots,” designed for repetitive tasks that are dirty, dangerous or dull. Today’s robots collaborate with humans and travel freely in open environments where people live and work.  And along with these free roaming robots, there is rising fear about what happens if a robot spins out of control?

Free-roaming robots are built with sensors, where the moment they sense a human, they stop where they are. But what happens if there is a malfunction? Humans when they malfunction turn into terrorists; so are humans ourselves creating another new risk at work places where robots are used? Simple question – would you trust Google’s driverless car to drive you around the city? That alone answers all your ‘safety concerns’ about robots.