Oblivious to the Obvious

So how many of you saw the stunning video on Google Assistant making a phone call on behalf of the user to make an appointment at a salon? They call it the Google Duplex and it pretty much understands the nuances of speech and answers just like humans. 

I am sure you guys would have watched it. Well, it is a game changer isn’t it? The idea is not far fetched. In no time we are going to have assistant making calls for us. Likewise, I bet you would have noticed the advertisements for Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa too. And I am also seeing a lot of people actually buying and using it. They are so thrilled with the new technology that they cannot resist buying it and flaunting about it in their social media sites.

After seeing Google’s duplex video, I was so amazed by the technology but the same time too nervous about it.In fact it started bothering me so much that I could not get it out of my head that day. To make things worse, I ended up watching a series of episodes from a series called Black Mirror and I ended up feeling very unhappy.

Creating a digital twin of a person, having implants in your brain which can manipulate your vision, an entire ecosystem of robotic bees around the planet and what not. The series provides deep insights of how technology is unfolding in the future. By future I mean, the near future which is not that far away.

So humans as a species, why are we so oblivious to the obvious? Yes, I am a great fan of technology, but not at the stake of risking life itself. Why do we not realize that these new automation are more dangerous than they look?

I can remember my grandmother singing songs to me when I was young and I cherish that moment till now. But now, we need a machine to sing song for our kids? And that too we need it to sing with minimum efforts from us. How could have life evolved so much that we are not capable of doing the bare minimum tasks that we were expected to do.

If AI has advanced so much that we can manipulate life itself, then should we not be taking a step back and give some thought about it. My question is why do we need these? Is life becoming so busy that you do not have time to make phone call yourself.

Are you not scared that the human connect and the emotional contact is going to be lost. I am not suggesting that we travel back to historic age where Homo sapiens where not more than social animals, but I think we should definitely be more mindful toward what the world is becoming.

As we look back, science and technology have caused a lot of massive destruction for earth. Invention of guns, nuclear weapons, plastics, and a lot more. The magnitude of funding and research that is being provided for new technology is enormous. If only a part of it would be towards making the environment a better place, improving nature and livelihood it would bring a lot of change.

I hope our future generation have some good air to breath rather than taking to machine that has no emotions.