Spanish researchers have carried out a study looking into the potential future impact of robots on society.
Their conclusions show that the enormous automation capacity of robots and their ability to interact with humans will cause a technological imbalance over the next 12 years between those who have them and those who do not.
“Just as we depend upon mobile phones and cars in our daily lives today, the next 15 years will see mass hybridisation between humans and robots,” predicts Antonio López Peláez, a professor of sociology at Spain’s National Distance Learning University, UNED, and co-author of the study on the future social impact of robots, jointly carried out with the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies.
International experts working on inventing and adapting cutting edge robots for practical use were interviewed during the study, in order to find out by when we will be regularly using the models they are currently designing.
All agreed on 2020 as a technological inflection point, because by then robots “will be able to see, act, speak, manage natural language and have intelligence, and our relationship with them will have become more constant and commonplace”, said López Peláez.
This will follow a revolution in robotics after which they will no longer be sophisticated machines, but tools to be used on a daily basis, helping us with a large number of work and social activities.
The most striking feature of this technological revolution are social robots, machines with artificial intelligence, and with which we will have emotional and personalised interactions.
“A robot might be a more effective partner and a better person than the humans we actually have in our immediate lives: just as you can see dog owners talking to their pets today, soon we will be talking to robots,” says López Peláez
