Robots are good for society

Thank you Adam2 for accepting the challenge. I will now start the debate.Since the dawn of man, humans have always tried to find and create new ways to solve existing problems in order to make their lives a little bit easier. Whether its cars, phones, computers or the Internet, they are all technological advancements that have reshaped our lives in a relatively short period of time. Currently, robotics and automation are the next phase of human technological advancement. As with any technology, the whole purpose of integrating robots into society is to make our lives easier, safer, and better overall. By nature, humans are lazy creatures as we are always trying to seek pleasure and avoid pain. For instance, who would want to mow the lawn or do the laundry if a robot could do it for you? Today, because of the exponential growth of computing, robots will soon be capable of performing almost any task we can imagine - tasks that humans don't want to do, don't have to do, or simply cannot do. Currently we are seeing this trend emerge around us such as in the assembly line of cars, ATM machines, self-checkouts in retail stores, and automated voice representatives. In the future, robots would perform all of the dangerous and heavy duty tasks such as building city and residential infrastructure: , manufacturing, land mining/scavenging resources, deep sea exploration, and space exploration. Robots will also be used in the service sector as well as in personal and home applications. Here's a list of a few things robots will do:Services:- Deliver goods/packages via autonomous vehicles or drones. Amazon Prime air: Pizza Delivery: - Logistics - Amazon's Kiva Systems: - Food services: , - Self-driving cars: , Home/Personal Use:- Fetch/retrieve items: - Laundry: - Mow the lawn: - 3D PrintersThe possibilities and the applications of robots are endless.Here's a list of misconceptions commonly attributed with Robots:1. Robots will steal our jobsThis is not the robots' fault. This is simply the flaw of our outdated economic system. The very nature of our current monetary economic system is that corporations will always strive to maximize profit. By hiring more robots and less people, in the long run businesses will greatly save a lot of money, while significantly increasing output and productivity.In the eye of the business owner, robots give more bang for their buck. The cold hard truth is that robots are just simply faster, more accurate/precise, and more efficient at performing tasks than any human being is capable of. This process is what's called "technological unemployment". If you don't like the idea of robots taking over our jobs, then you must focus on changing the current economic system, rather than banning robots from society. To stop the integration of robots would be to hinder technological innovation and the progression of the human race.2. Robots will take away our freedom and fun Actually, robots would give us more freedom and fun because we would spend less time doing mundane, menial, and repetitive tasks, and more time enjoying the things that we want to do. Although robots would be doing most of the tasks and labor, that is not stopping anyone from doing any of the work themselves. If you love mowing the lawn or washing the dishes, then by all means go for it. Just because there is a robot that can do it for you doesn't mean you are restricted from doing it yourself. Here's an analogy. Think of your car as like a robot. Just because you have a car, that does not stop you from walking to school or work. But most people would rather choose to a drive a car (unless you live across the street) because it exerts much less effort and pain than walking. The key here is that, with robots, you have choices; You can either walk or drive anytime you want. Without robots, you don't have any choice, which in this case you will always have to walk. If you still strongly think that robots will remove the freedom and fun in everything, then the next time you watch tv don't use a remote, always cook your food outside in a fire, never use a GPS when travelling, always send mails physically in the mailbox to communicate instead of using email or a cell phone, and always walk; never use a car. Now doesn't that sound like a lot of fun?3. Robots will turn us into fat, lazy couch potatoes Initially it would make sense to assume that people will become lazy and just sit on a couch all day doing nothing since robots would do almost all of the work. However, this is not necessarily all true. Most people have hobbies, a passion or at least something that they love to do. This could be playing a sport, an instrument, drawing, learning a subject, traveling, or just simply hanging out with friends and family. Because of robots, the time that you would have spent working, would now be used to spend time on your hobby, passion, or whatever it is you like to do.Again as I've mentioned before, humans will still have the choice of doing the tasks themselves if they so please.4. Robots are not safeJust like any technology, there are risk and rewards. Machines are not perfect and accidents inevitably happen. For example, cars are great for transporting people but they can also be dangerous. A lot of people die every day in car accidents, but that doesn't stop people from driving cars. Cars can also be easily used as weapons such as running over people on the sidewalks, yet they're still legal. This is simply because the benefits significantly outweigh the risks. In the future, robots will be engineered to be as intelligent and as safe as possible, They will have all kinds of sensors on board and run a super fast processor that would handle all of the data and calculations.5. Robots will take over humansPossibly in the next few of decades, computers could likely reach and surpass the intelligence of the human brain. This is a threat that deeply worries a lot of people and is a legitimate concern that should be taken very seriously. We don't want the world to end up like those in the Terminator or IRobot movies. But the good news is that this is totally preventable. Just like with any technology, robots can be made for good or for evil. Just as we can create technology to kill (guns, bombs, missiles, nuclear warheads), we can create technology to improve people's lives (Internet, cars, cell phones, etc). The only way robots could become evil and sabotage us is if we allow them to. Robots don't just create and program themselves, humans do. Humans are the creators, and we can control and program robots to do bad things, or we can program them to do good things. Today there exist many great technologies that are intentionally misused by certain people for the wrong reasons and motives. Thus, the real concern should not be the robots, but the possibility of robots and technology falling into the wrong hands. One way to prevent a robot takeover is to give robots only a localized control system instead of a centralized system like Skynet. This will ensure there are checks and balances between each robot. Additionally, robots should not be programmed to be any smarter than what their assigned task requires them to do. Engineers would also design and integrate a fail proof emergency switch in their chips, just in case they do get out of control. Ultimately, robots should always be created to serve humans and never the other way around.