I thought our discussion on Thursday was very thought provoking. Most of the class thought we had to many problems in currently in society to start introducing robots into our lives. I agree we are not ready for robots but not for that reason. I don’t agree with that reasoning solely because I believe robots have the potential to help all of these problems. I heard some people say that with the divide between races right now was one of our main problems. To see how robots can help with that problem we must find the source. If you think back, you’ll remember that the Black Lives Matter movement and similar campaigns really picked up after a case of police brutality in Ferguson, MO. If robots were apart of our police forces, I believe there would be a lot fewer biases when enforcing the law. Robots could record everything thats done and even remind our police officers how they are suppose to act in certain situations and warn officers of when they were violating constitutional rights.
I, however, believe we are not ready for robots because it will create a bigger divide between the wealthy and the poor. Robots will be expensive and will only be affordable to the wealthy. The wealthy could then go and use these robots to aid them in becoming wealthy and give them easier lives. The robots would not be affordable to those who would need them most. I still think robots could help police and help with race issues, but only in certain places. Only wealthy towns/cities would be able to afford robots for their police and in most cases, wealthy towns/cities don’t have as much police intervention going on and thus are not needed there as much. So again, nice towns were the rich live would become nicer, while lower class towns where the poor live would stay the same and maybe even become worse as time goes in.
If as a society we could figure out a way to give the people who need the most aid access to robots, then we will be ready to introduce them into society. And obviously like any other time our society introduces something new, we would need to have the proper legislations in place to regulate robots as well.