Is artificial intelligence a boon or bait? Do we have a threat of over-investing in machine learning and machine language?
Though there is no need to press the panic button just yet, things are getting murkier in the retail space. After Amazon acquired Whole Foods, a fresh wave of debate has ensued across the technology space, with people suggesting robots will replace cashiers and warehouse workers. Amazon’s recent acquisition of Whole Foods suggests that robots may take over many of the human interactive positions at the supermarket chain.
However, what is surprising is that many people believe robots and AI machines will take over jobs typically held by human beings. For practicality sake, the role of the cashier has already been replaced by self-checkout machines. Maybe such jobs were meant to be mechanized, giving humans time to move on to other things.
But that’s not the point. What is pleasantly surprising is the fact that technology is slowly taking over highly skilled and relationship oriented jobs such as medical doctors, lawyers, and caregivers — jobs thought to be safe from technology’s grasp. But there is increasing evidence of innovation happening to make these jobs more mechanized through artificial intelligence.
Technology innovation has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, technology boasts of reading emotions more precisely than people. Products like Emotient and Affectiva are examples of software that can tell if your emotion is real or fake by analyzing your face. Pepper, the humanoid robot, not only analyzes your face but listens to your tone of voice to analyze your emotion before responding accordingly.
The intriguing question is whether technology can express emotions even if it can read them? Even Pepper is not 100% accurate in expressing emotions exactly like humans do. Hence it is very difficult to come to the conclusion that robots will totally replace humans in relationship-based jobs. The more humans craft robots to have humanlike characteristics, the more we become responsible for putting our own jobs at risk.
Anirudh M. for TechFunnel.com
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