Saturday, September 8, 2012

A new kind of specie?

I was reading Frankenstein and then it made me think about what a great visionary Mary Shelley was.She challenged the limits of imagination and put a spotlight on the moral, ethical and religious implications of science, when she decided to put a pen to paper and create a new human being, using the power of electricity and the parts of the body of a dead man to finally bring a lifeless entity to life. No one could imagine in the 18th century that Shelley’s ideas would continue to resound within our present age.

Nowadays scientists are the new Dr.Frankensteins of our century. The ideas of an accelerated increment of efficient in medicine, industries, companies and any other field that can produce and facilitate our existence, besides the attempts to create life, are issues that we can see clearly represented in the creation of robots. Initially they were used for repetitive functions, then industries realized that using robots saved more money than using people to work in certain tasks,and from that moment on with technological advances, a big industry started to develop  and more complex and sophisticated kind of robots were created. Nowadays there are many types with different functions; military robots, mining robots, nanorobots, telerobots, space robots, even robotic prostheses, etc and everyday scientists are trying to perfectionate humanoid robots to look like us and to imitate our behavior.

On the other hand, as this technology is making a breakthrough, ethical and moral issues are taking a prominent role and making us reflect on the role of science in technology, evolution and human progress. We can’t deny that robots can make our life easier, but which are going to be the limits of science and technology? are they trying to create a super man? Is there going to be a robotic war?  Are we going to use robotic organs to be stronger, smarter and richer?  is this the new social gap between poor people and rich ones? Are they going to be a new kind of species in our planet? What  do you think?


4 comments:

  1. Ouch! every time I read something related to new technologies in robots, etc, the first thing that comes to my mind is "Terminator". I know that might sounds too alarmist, but we don't know if some day our creation could turn against us. That idea has always been in my mind, and that is the risk we had taken, when we decided to play pretend we can be a god too.

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  2. I know that robots can make our life easier, they can work at a constant speed, they can produce big quantities in a short period of time, they can save workers from working in dangerous tasks, they can work in hazardous conditions etc. They can cover a huge range of fields in our lifes from producing to health care, but what I don't understand and scares me a little bit is why do scientists put so much effort in making them to look like humans? what's the main purpose of it? is it really necessary? if we are all conscious that they are just machines that can help us to improve our lifes we don't need them to look like us

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  3. I think is related to what I said before: we pretend to be as a god. I mean, if you think about that is all we have been trying to do, from the study of genetics to the cloning, we as humans need to feel that we are in charge of something and we are too great to create and do whatever we want.

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  4. "Pygmalion, a famous sculptor, falls in love with his own creation and wishes to give this creation life..." Thus, Galatea was born. Galatea represents the desire of being God, the desire of creating something perfect. If you know the myth,you should hope that the end of this story would be equal that Pygmalion and Galatea's, but being aware of the real nature of human beings, sooner or later this new robots will be used as weapons. I hope to be wrong!

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