Nowadays, technology, artificial intelligence especially, is evolving at such a rapid pace that soon robots will rule the world. Maybe its better that way. I’m going to write this one like I wrote all my MBA reports (maybe not quite so formal but ill follow the layout!) just for the fun of it! Complete with an introduction, analysis and conclusion! Clearly, I miss writing reports!
INTRODUCTION
What really disinguishes a human from a robot? From what I gather, its just the emotions or simply put, feelings. Humans have feelings and robots don’t. There really isn’t any other significant difference. Whatever a man can do, so can a robot, maybe even better. Feelings, the whole range of them, though a very small aspect of human life according to many, are a powerful tool that can build or destroy lives and whatever you do, wherever you go, you cannot avoid them. But with the modern age, are feelings getting sidetracked? With the age of machines and artificial intelligence (and its almost here if we were to believe all the sci-fi movies coming up these days!) who knows how long we humans have to live on this world. That might not necessarily be a bad thing!
ANALYSIS
It is very difficult to judge if it is better to have feelings or to be like the robots. For example, robots wouldn’t wage wars on each other because of a hurt ego. And Ego, is a direct manifestation of pretty strong feelings about some aspect of one’s life or the other. Robots wouldn’t kill, fight, hurt other robots just because they were angry or hurt. They wouldn’t even know what anger or hurt is. Similarly, they wouldn’t give each other love and affection but yes, they would take care of one another if programmed to do so. But that care would be more or less like chores for them, one of the day to day activities they are programmed to carry out. With feelings are associated expectations. Can you imagine what the world would be like without expectations? That alone would remove half the world’s problems. Imagine a world without expectations. No one would feel disappointed on their expectations not being met. The world would just run mechanically doing the regular activities that one is programmed to do. No one would get bored with their work. No one would be miserable enough to want to quit and increase the unemployment rate of the world. World economies would just be stable. No developed countries, no developing countries, no superpowers. Basically, no borders. Free trade. Don’t even know if there would be a need for trade. If every country is mechanised, all countries would have equal capabilities and hence eliminate the whole need for a union of countries for any sort of trade relations. Obviously, Brexit or any sort of exit wouldnt even matter! Which brings me to another point. People work for money, to have a better standard of life, to sustain themselves. If there were robots, no one would feel undervalued or underappreciated or even underpaid. They just wouldn’t be paid. They wouldn’t need money in the first place. No wait, they may need money to buy oil for their hinges! In that case, he whole focus on world wars would shift!
Okay. Enough with the bads. Well, thats a perspective. I just wrote from a pro robot, anti human side. Its only fair that I cover the opposite side, the pro human and anti robot side. If I were to write from this side, the most important thing that comes to mind is relationships. Relationships, in my opinion, are what make humans, humans. The ability to feel helps us build relationships and that helps us sustain ourselves in this world. That and money of course. But I’ll get to that in a moment. Imagine a world without the most important person in everyone’s life (at least in the beginning years of life), their mother. Then, the second most important, their father. Their family. You can see where this is going. Life would be miserable if you werent attached to your mom with feelings. Well, who would you scream for when you couldn’t find something in your room? Who would you blame for all the rules and regulations around curfews and how you behave and what you wear and if you study and finish your homework on time etc etc? Okay, this was for those who think they aren’t as attached to their moms and can do fine without them. Now for the ones who are mamma’s boys and girls, imagine a world without her. Who would you go to when you were upset and wanted to just cry and be consoled? Who would you turn to for advice when your brain just isn’t working? Who would you take for granted to just do things for you and never complain that you dont do anything for her in return? Applying the same to fathers, the feeling is exactly the same. For some, yes, I agree the equations might be different. But even they would have someone they are attached to for all of the things I just pointed out. But if we were robots, you might say these things wouldn’t matter but that is what I call a loss of purpose. If we aren’t feeling and building relationships along the way, we aren’t living and if we arent living, whats the purpose of all this? Whats the purpose of advancements if we arent really living? Yes, problems like war, poverty, hunger, illiteracy and so many others that we face now are caused by us being humans but at times of great need, it is our feelings of compassion that bring us toether and help us withstand such harsh problems as well. Life always goes on, no matter what the crisis. I am pretty sure there are more benefits of being human but feelings and relationships resulting from those feelings help us get through frustrations of life that are caused by other feelings. These relationships give us purpose in life. They motivate us to do something. In fact it is these relationships that we care about that motivate us to make life more comfortable and easy going in future which is making us make advances in science to develop artificial intelligence and make lives more convenient for ourselves and all our loved ones around us. This is the purpose. Without this purpose, we are as good as the robots! A very messy version of robots (with feelings I mean) but robots none the less.
CONCLUSION
With both perspectives on the table, It is hard to pick one as the right or wrong answer to the question whether feelings are good or bad! Everyone can have their own ideas about what they feel is right or wrong. There would be loads of people out there who would say whatever I just wrote was complete non sense and thats what they “feel”. And the fact that we are humans force us to respect those feelings (for most people). I am sure there are those that wouldn’t care a damn. Guess we will just wait and watch how science progresses and how the world progresses. Till then we can just sit and speculate!
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True to myself, I tried to give a balanced perspective of both positives and negatives of being a human with feelings as well as being a robot without feelings. To be frank, I did not cover humans without feelings (they do exist) and robots with feelings (they clearly can exist as we have seen in countless movies now). But, the purpose of this article was to spit out my own frustration about my conflicted feelings about the people I care about and how they drive me moods and every action I take. It makes me wonder how I would be had I not had these emotions. Would I have been better off? Would I have been more at peace? Loss of a huge anchor in my life and constant battles with the other two are making me emotionally conflicted and these feelings dont help make life a happy one. When I “feel” upset, I write and this was just one of the many outbursts.
Musings of a confused nut! 