There's a BakeBot robot whipping up fresh cookies at MIT; hospitals are now employing medical robots to assist their doctors; and a robot named Baxter can beat any human at the popular logic game Connect Four, among many other tasks.
"Historically what we thought was that robots would do things that were the three D's: dangerous, dirty, and dull," explains Ryan Calo, professor at University of Washington School of Law with an expertise in robotics. "Over time, the range of things that robots can do has extended."
Their abilities will only continue to expand. Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, anticipates thatby 2029 robots will have reachedhuman levels of intelligence.
Many people fear a jobless future — and their anxiety is not unwarranted:Gartner, an information technology research and advisory firm,predictsthat one third of jobs will be replaced by software, robots, and smart machines by 2025.
Artificial intelligence and robots are not just challenging blue-collar jobs; they are starting to take over white-collar professionsas well. Financial and sports reporters, online marketers, surgeons, anesthesiologists,and financial analysts are alreadyin danger of being replaced by robots.
While one camp of experts predict thatseveral unlucky Americans will be pushed out of work in the near future,others argue that this increase in computing prowess will simplyeliminate old jobs and introduce new ones, resulting in a net-zero effect — or even an increase in jobs.New technology means new products and services, they argue, as we saw during the Industrial Revolution.
Experts are calling this movement the "Second Machine Age," as it is comparable to what we saw 200 years ago with the invention of the steam engine and themachine age that ensued.
The machines of the Industrial Revolution overcame the limitations of human muscle, while the robots and artificial intelligence of today are overcoming the limitations of our individual minds.
The past can be helpful in predicting the future, but there are no guarantees.
While it is hard to fully anticipatethe consequences of this major societal shift towards intelligent machines, we can find comfort in the fact that we still have a leg up on robots for certain jobs: ones that require judgement, creative thinking, and human interaction.
"For a long time, artificial intelligence has been better than us at highly structured, bounded tasks," Calo explains. "What it has not been good at, and likely won't be good at anytime soon, are the more unstructured tasks."
Computer scientists generally agree that manipulating language — cracking jokes and detecting sarcasm — is beyond the capability of machines; with such rapid advancements however, an intelligent machine could be writing an article about humans before we know it.
NOW WATCH: What the Chinese saying 'The ugly wife is a treasure at home' actually means
See Also:
- This humanoid robot can recognize and interact with people
- The UK government is refusing to rule out building killer robots
- A robot just started her job as the receptionist at Japan's oldest department store
SEE ALSO:The 20 Best Jobs Of The Future
