Robotic machines are now a common part of our lives. Things such as computers, toasters and even baseball softball pitching machines are used to help us in our everyday life. It’s quite easy to stand inside a batting cage and hit a round of balls that appear to be the same to those pitched by a real human. What kind of moral questions do such possibilities bring out? Is it fine to be so reliant on machines? My concern is not with robots taking over our lives in any scary movie sense, I don’t expect batting cages to come to life and try to kill us all, but our dependence on machines to do the work that was done by humans less than a hundred years ago marks a rapid change in the way we live our lives. This change is worth thinking about.
Obviously, with the inception of the internet, our whole way of thinking has been altered. It’s hard to imagine what it would have been like for Native Americans, for example, or even Europeans who lived in a rural setting. These people may have seen around only a few hundred faces in their lifetime, while we may interact with that many humans within the time of just a year, and the number of faces we see can hardly be counted.
While the changes may seem insignificant, it has to be admitted that such a way of living will have effects on our brains themselves. It’s been reported that the brain is physically changed by the sensations and experiences it receives, so to say what we view changes our brain is in no way an exaggeration.
Has the growing use of robotics had a positive effect on our lives? If we think about this in terms of convenience and superficial happiness, there’s no question that it has. It has never been easier to have food and diversions delivered to our house within minutes of our wanting to have them. But this, of course, is only true for those in wealthy situations living in developed countries. In order to exist like this, there are others in poorer countries who must do the task of making the shoes, connecting the machines and building the boxes. It goes without saying that the majority of these workers will be poorly paid for their labor, as those in the developed areas would be unwilling to pay a higher price for things which we feel are deserved.
Along with the exploitation of other humans is the exploitation of non-human life. The way we act towards nature appears to be a near abusive relationship, with man simply taking what they can view around them and claiming it to be his own.
Undoubtedly, such a destructive relationship with the world around us has begun to have seriously damaging effects on the way we’re able to live our own lives of comfort. When nature and machine damage each other, it is nature that humans will need more in order to continue their survival. One would wish that we are able to see this occur before it’s too late.
