AN ARMY OF ROBOTS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS AT OUR DOORS

We have thought that some day in the future robots, cyborg parts, artificial intelligence and so many science fiction things would be part of our lives. Well that some day is mostly here and there is a growing crowd behind them. We live in a remarkable time and our children will see even more of this electronic army. If you could see into a modern surgery theater today you would find remote computer operating machines that can do the finest operations on such things as your brain and eyes and deep into your body. In some cases they do not have to surgically cut you but do what is called key-hole surgery. Then you have newly designed artificial arms and other appendages that have small computers inside to help them to, for instance, make fingers grasp and pick up objects.  How about building a replacement heart for the one you wore out. And who knows what we will accomplish in the future.

Professor Gregory Benford and Elizabeth Malartre have scoped into our present and into our future in a book, titled “Beyond Human”, that is clearly out of the Jules Verne genre and they paint an extraordinary picture of the future. We have been able to go to Mars, which is millions of miles away and put down vehicles that we operate remotely from here. We drive them across the landscape and they test and observe and send results back to us that are so clear and precise. It’s almost like we are there in person. Then we have the everyday robots that do defense and army jobs, cleaning, security, and we are only looking superficially.

Remember the Amazing Journey movie where tiny robots went inside a human, through the blood veins, directly to disease sites to repair and even cure problems? Well they actually are not far away in development.

Artificial intelligence will help us to collect and solve problems we have not even thought of before. As I said, our children and theirs will be well served by all that we create today. We call them generally "robots", but they will have many new names in the future.  We’ll have ethical problems to solve and even new laws to write, but we clearly have to and will be in control. We, as inhabitants of today, can only dream of all that will be.