Randall Alley is the Chief Prosthetist at Biodesigns, a high-performance
prosthetics company. When asked when he thought these "surrogate robots" would be available at a reasonable price to the public he responded:
“As a wild guess I am going to offer up the year 2025, as there are surely higher priorities than surrogate creation on the to-do list of most scientists. Then to bring this tech down to the affordable level, well, that's the tough part.”
To hear someone so closely involved in the industry claim that the technology to create real-life avatars so soon seems incredible to me, and almost too soon. With all of the ethical questions surrogate technology would bring up, would the world we live in be able to handle the new technology?
One has to wonder what these cyborg versions of our consciousness would be like. Dr. James Canton believes that just like any other new technology, both good and bad could come of it. With robot surrogates, one could be in as many places at once as they had replicas. Accidentally schedule an important meeting at the same time as your kid's soccer game? No problem, just send the cyborg. Canton also says these robots could help in many fields as well, performing surgeries or rescuing a mother's baby from a burning building are just two duties surrogates could take over for us, leaving humans with extra time to do.... something.
After reading about this technology, all I can picture is a horrifying movie scene, something reminiscent of Terminator or I Robot. Replicas of celebrities and others wealthy enough to buy robots of themselves running around cities with grenades and laser pistols destroying all organic life after developing enough to realize their subtle form of captivity living the life of another. While there are countless possibilities, I think our society would have to seriously sit down and discuss the implications of something so foreign. What would their rights be? What are the laws regarding the creation of these beings? How do humans interact with them? Could I get a replica of my Elf-Mage from WoW?!
Salton, Jeff. "Surrogate Robots: More Fact than Fiction?" Gizmag (2010). Web. 22 Sept. 2010. .
I don't believe him at all. 2025 is far too close for technology that cool. I think it's like how, in 1968, Arthur C Clarke thought we'd be flying to Jupiter in 2001. Many people, especially those with scientific backgrounds, get far too optimistic when predicting the future.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's 2010, and we still don't have hoverboards. Someone should fix this.