Are you ever worried of the day when you’ll show up at work and find your job taken by a Robot? Most of us believe that Invention of Robots and advancement of Artificial Intelligence(AI) will allow the robots to one day rule the world. With all these beliefs, scientists are still continuing to perfect them. This makes me think, are Robots really that bad? This article will look into the disadvantages and advantages of robots in bid to answer this question.
Disadvantages of using Robots.
1. Loss of jobs.
Robots are programmed to conduct tasks efficiently and accurately. They also have a high processing power and thus when introduced to factories and industries they end up replacing the human workforce. This results in unemployment.
2. Destructive if in the wrong hands.
Robots function based on how they are programmed. They can’t differentiate between good and bad unless programmed to. Therefore, if in the hands of evil people, it may be used to destroy the lives of numerous people and even governments.
3. May lead to huge losses in case of slight error.
Robots can’t know when they have a fault or error in their system since they work depending in their program. If a company depends heavily on the robots then they might have to incur huge losses before discovering that the robots are faulty. They are also emotionless and may not be able to work efficiently with human workers.
4. Expensive to buy and maintain.
Robots are very costly to acquire. They also require frequent maintenance, software updates and cannot run without a power supply. This becomes costlier compared to human workers.
5. Inflexible.
Unlike human workers, Robots cannot handle unexpected and urgent situations. They will to be reprogrammed again to tackle such situations. This may be very costly to industries who depend entirely on robots.
Advantages of Robots.
Robots are used in almost every field today where their input is immeasurable. Some of their advantages includes:
A. They are more Efficient compared to humans.
Robots are designed to carry out tasks of many employees simultaneously and very accurately producing results instantly. This, despite replacing human labor, allows the company to eliminate costs spent on salaries and thus more profit is achieved. They are also able to meet the production deadlines set by the manager thus more efficient.
B. Quality Assurance.
Since Robots are machines, they are designed to conduct their tasks to a degree of accuracy that no human can. They can conduct better research, do more accurate computations and even eliminate most human errors posed by workers. Robots are also more consistent in production regardless of the numbers.
C. They can work for Longer hours.
Unlike humans who need breaks after every few hours of work, robots can work tirelessly day and night with just the right maintenance. This means that an industry or business can be operational 24/7 ensuring maximum productivity. This in turns doubles the profits gained by human workers.
D. Improved working Environments.
For a human to be very effective in his work, the environment in which he works needs to be very conducive. However, this is not the case for Robots. Robots such as Universal Robots , are not affected by hostile environments and thereby, can work in conditions deemed as unfit for humans and still be productive while ensuring that all the human workers work in a safe environment. They also reduce the risk of human injuries faced during working hours.
E. They can do work despised by humans.
Are you sometimes bored of doing the same workover and over? Is there that job at work that no one wants to do? Well, robots never tire nor get afraid of certain jobs. They can be used to repetitive jobs and even the jobs disliked or feared by people.
F. They are life-saving.
In the recent years, robots have been utilized in wars and in the medical field and have proved to be very effective saving hundreds of lives.
Conclusion
In as much as there are some disadvantages associated with robots, we cannot over-look the fact that when placed in the right hands, robots could revolutionize the world. Their usefulness is more than we can think of. So, in my view Robots may not be so bad after all.
