Robots and other automaton have long fascinated the imaginations of authors and artists. Since the first automatons appeared working in Hephaestus' workshop in "The Iliad," people have imagined what it would be like to live in a world of servants who demand neither food nor pleasure and exist only to serve. For a long time, such "perfect beings" remained the sole province of divinity and myth - found only in the imperfect minds of their inventors.
Soon, the Western world will no longer need to use its imagination. On June 18, an article in The New Zealand Herald announced the unveiling of a new robotic "companion" that will soon be launched in the United States for the measly sum of $175. Sega Toys, a Japanese firm, began advertising the release of EMA, a "big-busted, petite and very friendly" automaton who will "pucker up" on demand.
While the product, which will be marketed toward "lonely older men," seems like nothing more than another novel invention from those electronic-obsessed Japanese (imagine kissing an industrially-cleavaged Rock'em Sock'em Robot), EMA's appearance is merely the tip of a large wave of automatization that is about to descend upon the world - and we're not sure if the world is ready.
For even as price, efficiency and sophistication make the latest generation of our electronic counterparts cheaper and easier to use, there have been no real efforts by either the government or private firms to begin regulating this exploding field. Of course, any sci-fi geek worth his weight in Magic cards can tell you about Isaac Asimov's "Laws of Robotics," but even these relatively simple limitations ("A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm") have yet to be worked into the machines, which have increasingly begun to do our dirty work. Though last week's edition of The Economist reports that rapid advances in "sight" and "touch" technology have given researchers the ability to make robots much safer, history has shown that private companies will never include expensive safety features unless forced by the market or, as a last resort, government intervention.
But even incorporating safety features into the most paranoid of androids will not be the real problem robotics present for the modern world. The danger instead lies with the sheer possibility of robots replacing humans in most of the jobs that previously served as people's bread and butter. As robots are invented to vacuum, clean windows, dig holes, harvest crops and perform every other unskilled service job in between, they risk pricing some the world's poorest people completely out of the marketplace.
Why keep paying someone $100 for a day of cleaning each week when Rosie the Robot Maid could be bought for $1,000 to clean everyday until her warranty expires?
Instead of paying a premium for workers to perform dangerous, distasteful or difficult tasks, there will be a huge incentive for companies to simply design a robot for the job. As new generations of robots replace more and more workers, we risk becoming a civilization in which the world won't even need ditch diggers anymore. More alarmingly, if this situation is not properly and promptly addressed, the economy could see wealth rapidly accumulate with the wealthy (i.e., those who can afford robots) at even greater rates than now - prompting huge concerns for what the world will do with people for whom we will literally have no more financial use for.
Seeing as how our knowledge of robots and artificial intelligence essentially begins with HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the creepy androids from "Blade Runner" and ends with the Fem-Bots of "Austin Powers" fame, (neither of whose invention turned out particularly happily for the humans) we're probably not equipped to be the ones who will answer the questions. But as more and more Roombots, EMAs and ASIMOS start finding their way into our streets and houses, someone is going to have to speak up. Let's just hope it's not the robots themselves.
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