Will robots take over from us?
Will robots take over from humans? Should we fear the “Fourth Revolution”? In SA, will it add to unemployment? “Fourth Revolution” is a silly term. The idea is that the First Revolution was about steam power, the Second electricity, the Third electronics and the Fourth clever robots. Actually the first two are the same and so are the last two.
When the Industrial Revolution happened in England – when one steam-driven machine did the work of 10 men – there were dire predictions of unemployment, poverty and unhappiness. The opposite happened. There was a massive increase in jobs, prosperity, health, life expectancy and environmental well-being (the environment of London was greatly improved when motorcars replaced horses). Electricity was an immense force for good.
The electronic revolution, based on the transistor, is unprecedented in history. In 1969, when we landed on the Moon, there were predictions that by 2000 there would be weekend excursions to the Moon and colonies on Mars. No such thing happened. But in electronics it was the opposite. Nobody predicted the blindingly fast advance in computing power by electronic chips compressing ever more information into ever tinier components.
Now electronic brains are used to control robots that are doing more jobs better than humans – and without ever getting sick.
In the 14th century a skilled English archer could kill a man at 100 metres with his bow. But he needed 10 years of training to do so. Nowadays a schoolboy with a modern rifle and telescopic sights can do the same with 10 minutes of training.
Technology has replaced skill. Perhaps we shall need more unskilled workers to run the robots but more skilled ones to programme and repair them.
However, there is no reason why soon the robots won’t be able to programme and repair themselves. Indeed, there is no reason they won’t be able to make themselves.
Could robots replace humans? I can’t think of a logical reason why not. All life on Earth evolved by random mutation and selection (by survival) when the mutation happened to be beneficial. We could programme robots to evolve in similar way – but much faster.
But do we want to?