An optimistic take on the coming of the robot-age

Last week you may have been very impressed to see on the news footage of walking, talking, humanoid-type robots of the sort portrayed in science fiction movies down the years. The robots spoke with humans in a human-like way, carried out tasks like folding clothes, and even danced.

The robots have been produced by a company owned by the tech multi-billionaire, Elon Musk, at this stage arguably the most powerful person in the world not occupying a public office.

Musk is the founder and owner of Tesla, the leading maker of electric cars. He is a key part of the drive to roll out ever more advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI). Another of his companies, SpaceX, is probably now the leader in putting humans and human-made objects into space.

The company recently put an Irish satellite in space, and Musk’s ambition is to eventually put people on Mars. Last week, we saw SpaceX launch a rocket into space and then bring it back down to its launching pad for reuse, an incredible technical feat. In the past, each rocket had only a one-time use. Think back to the moon landings.

We also saw a driverless car in action last week, again thanks to Elon Musk. And now we have those robots. Other companies are developing similar technologies, but Musk is certainly at the cutting edge of all of them. Oh, and he owns the social media platform ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter.

But before we get entirely carried away, those walking, talking, clothes-folding robots were not all they seemed because they were being operated remotely by humans who were also providing the voices. So, they were not as advanced or as autonomous as they appeared to be and therefore the future promised, or warned against, by sci-fi movies hasn’t quite arrived yet.

When I read that, I was a bit disappointed and felt slightly conned. Yes, a future with advanced robots carries dangers, but also possibilities, and it is almost always exciting to see a major new technology being developed.

Still, the day when the sort of robots we appeared to be seeing last week cannot be too far off, and Musk is promising that before long you will be able to buy one for around €20,000 or €30,000, roughly the price of a new car, and as the years pass they will probably get cheaper, and as with cars, you’ll eventually be able to buy a more affordable, second-hand one.

Therefore, in the future, many if not most households might have their robot helper who can cut the grass, prepare meals, do the washing, vacuum the floor and even chat to you in ways tailor-made especially for you.

Once upon a time it would have seemed impossible for almost every household to eventually have a car, and now many households have more than one. Therefore, a future where every household has a robot helper is not as far-fetched as it seems.

How sophisticated and advanced will they be? Opinion seems to vary on this point but for the most part they are bound to be pretty good.

Let’s sketch out the more encouraging possibilities. One is that hard-pressed parents, at work all day, long hours spent commuting, having dropped their children off to a carer and collected them afterwards, then get home to do the housework. Except in the not-so-distant future, there will be a robot-helper at home doing some of the more basic and menial tasks.

After you get home, they can help with the dinner. They would have to become pretty advanced to cook a proper dinner, but you could easily imagine them being able to heat up those oven-ready meals, set the table, serve the meals and clear up afterwards.

Doing the laundry is not far-fetched either at some point in the future, and perhaps they will be able to do the ironing, which would be really labour-saving.

A robot-helper would be the ultimate mod-con.

We already have Chat-GPT or other similar programmes which you can interact with you in various ways. This sort of ‘chat’ technology will become ever more advanced, and these robots will be able to have increasingly sophisticated conversations with you and their programming will respond to your interests.

Even better, they will never become tired or impatient.

Again, I am playing out the optimistic scenario here, but in the future they will be many more old people than there are now. Many of them will be widowed. A growing number will never have married and will never have had children, or maybe will have had only one child. That child may now be living elsewhere.

In other words, there will be a lot of loneliness, and as people age, they will become more infirm and less able to look after themselves. The robots, if they become good enough, will be able to help on both scores, both by providing companionship and by helping around the house.

There can be no theological or moral objection to any of this, unless you simply reject technological solutions of this kind to problems.

A better line of argument than objecting to AI-robots per se, is that our future will become less human, and these robots will replace many of us, if only because there will be fewer people due to shrinking populations. Instead of having human companions and human workers, we will have robot companions and robot workers. It should, of course, go without saying that a robot will not be able to love you, although it might eventually be able to give the impression of doing so.

I am assuming for the sake of the argument that the worst scenarios some warn against do not take place, chief among them being that AI simply turns on us. Sci-fi movies are full of this kind of thing and Elon Musk himself, among others, says this could happen, although they think it is an outside possibility, rather than probable.

Robots may in time take up a lot of the strain in nursing homes and hospitals. In Japan, primitive versions are already being used to help lift patients in and out of bed for instance, or distribute trays of food.

I am going to stick with the optimistic technology scenario this time out, however. I think it is a bad thing that our populations are growing older and will eventually shrink drastically and families will become much thinner on the ground.

But in a world of this kind, it would be a good thing if sophisticated robots can fill the gap and do the work and provide the companionship that would otherwise not be done due to fewer people being around.