If you want a peek at the future and the world that will be, you don’t need a time machine anymore. Just read the science fiction of today and you will get a basic idea.
Of course, not everything in science fiction becomes a reality. There are these things called laws of physics that you just can’t break. But hey! Even within those limits, technology has, and always will, keep surprising us.
The other day I was watching this movie called “Ghost In A Shell” starring Scarlett Johansson in which she is an enhanced human, where she has the brain of a human and the body of a robot. This made me think.
In the future, we could very well head down the same road where our bodies will be enhanced with cybernetic parts or one day even be able to download our consciousness into a robot. What is more likely however, is robots as separate entities living amongst us as a race of their own. In such a future, could we imagine a human-robot relationship?
The Rise of Robots
Although the advancement of robotics have been quite impressive in the past few decades, the image that we all have in our minds of a human like robot being able to function like a human and virtually do everything that we can, still seems like a far off dream.
But, while that may be true, robots are already extensively used in the modern day. They are used by the military, in manufacturing, in space exploration, in the medical field, for rescue missions and also in agriculture.
As for the humanoid robots shown in the movies, there are basically two pieces that need to become much more advanced and come together effortlessly. The hardware part and the software part. While we do have the hardware part of the puzzle to an extent, the software needs to catch up.
There are however major strides being made on that software part too. With artificial intelligence advancing as fast as it is, we may finally realise the rise of the humanoid robots well before 2050. We will finally have created a race of robots that can think for themselves and take intelligent decisions and who will also display and respond to emotions.
Robots As Spouse?
Some of the smartest people are already talking about establishing a set of rights that these sort of robots will have and how they will fit into our society. It may sound like a bunch of fantasy talk but it always does until it becomes real.
Robots that are empowered by AI, that can exist along side our own human race can definitely be possible in the future. In such a world, is it too far-fetched to imagine a literal marriage between the two?
If a robot, that looks exactly like a human, sounds exactly like a human, moves like a human, is able to have any type of conversation, is able to identify feelings and share its own and shows the same level of intelligence and maturity as a human, would you be able to fall in love with one and perhaps even marry one?
Maybe. Maybe not. There are many people that believe this will indeed happen. For that to ever become a reality, the human society will have to evolve and our concept of love and marriage will need to change and of course the law would need to reflect that change as well.
An Impossible Reality?
Although society and our own views on the matter might change, there are still a lot of problems that will be almost impossible to solve even with the cutting edge technology of the time.
For example, there is a question about procreation which may prove to be one of the most difficult one as in my views, it might be completely impossible to recreate in robots.
Then there is the problem of self awareness that might prove to be extremely difficult because how do you even create consciousness and then you have individual personalities that are shaped by nurture as well as nature, both of which may not be an available option for robots that are built in factories.
Some of these issues and characteristics are so unique to humans and something that we even don’t understand fully about ourselves that it just seems too far-fetched to imagine we will recreate them in a creation of our own. If we do however, I think we will need to re-examine what being human even means!