Emerging Technologies Blog

It was exactly 8 a.am in the morning and Mr. Robinson, whose apartment was at the heart of the city, was getting dressed for work when suddenly he heard a knock on the door. He hurried to open it as he was getting  late. But the person he met at the door, coupled with the sad news she came with, left him with no choice than to lost his working day. She had been sacked by a robot or to put it in straight sense, replaced by a robot. She was part of the employees who were substituted with androids or humanoid robots as the company she worked for no longer required their services. She cried her eyes out as she narrated the whole story to Mr. Robinson . She worked in a hotel, anyway.

Now like that pretty, talented etc. young woman above, thousands of people, if not millions, will be put out of jobs when robots become more advanced, cheap and readily available in any business such as, factories, hotels, airports, to name but a few. Their ability to complete daunting tasks that humans may find so difficult  or thankless, and do it more efficiently, lay the groundwork for robots to take over humans in workplaces.

If it costs a company $8 to get a job done using a robot than it cost $20 for a human, such a company would put human labor in abeyance---at least to cut down on the cost of running the business. When that happens, that company has stopped some people's means of livelihood.

In fact as we speak robots are replacing or competing with humans for what I call ''workplace survival.'' Still in doubt? In 2013, the Oxford University conducted a survey on this same topic and found out that 47 percent of 702 jobs in the United States of America were being threatened by robots. That goes to show that companies are training robots in order to replace humans. Which, to me, is not good for humanity. The ''real life'' examples given below further corroborate this claim.

Pepper

A Japanese company called SoftBank Mobile has a robot called Pepper that is able to read human emotions. The 4ft robot can make you laugh, happy and...wait for it...take your place as a salesman. Nestle, the multinational food and beverage company, is using Pepper as salesmen to sell coffee machines in home appliance stores across Japan. They intend to acquire more Peppers to meet up with demand. Thinking what I'm thinking?

Baxter robot

Baxter the robot is also playing its part. It is being used by manufacturing companies to package items, loading and even used to fix machines. It is now trying to 'svengal'' its boss to take off its human counterpart, as  it sees them as threat. Call it the survival of the fittest, if you wish!

The Japanese hotel feminine humanoid

And just this year, Japan, again, promised to open the world's first hotel half-staff by humanoid robots or droids that look very much like the beautiful Japanese women. From what I heard, these robots, which speak fluent Japanese, English, Korea and Chinese, will sit at the front desk to check you in, carry your luggage and even do room service. The hotel is called 'Henn-na'' and is expected to open for business come July 17th, 2015 in Huis Ten Bosch theme park near Nagasaki, Japan.

Don't forget that robotic cars or self-driving car are posing  great threats to taxi/cab/truck drivers.


Now  try to envisage a future where half of the world's population are out of jobs owing to the use of robots. What do you think would happen to humanity? I think at this juncture we should etched on our minds the warnings of Bill Gates,   and Stephen Hawking that we should put every efforts to avoid them or that the use of these robots in industries will benefits humanity.