Robots are the future

By Abdullahi Sheikh

Would it surprise you to learn that there is an initiative to attain immortality by the year 2045? A Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov and his team of scientists seek to bring about exactly that. Although it may sound like a pipe dream, just like flying cars were to the ‘90s, maybe you should give it some more thought. We live in a world today where the line between humans and technology is slowly blurring, and it doesn’t seem to be on the road to becoming any clearer in the future.

For example, I doubt you’re aware of a little thing called Project Aiko. It’s a Canadian-made robot from my hometown of Brampton, intended to perform normal house functions and generally serve as a companion.

Although it’s no Megaman, it certainly is an interesting endeavor, and one that only serves to underscore the fact that we truly live in a cyberpunk age. The author of Nueromancer, the quintessential cyberpunk novel, has even been recorded as saying that modern day Tokyo fits his image of a cyberpunk city perfectly.

Now, this is all fine and dandy for a scholarly article type bit, but where’s the opinion? Well I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. In all honesty, I can’t see any sort of downside to this. Well, at least not one that’s important enough for us to turn back. The thought of our children or our children’s children enjoying life in a world with robots bearing artificial intelligence aiding their day to day life, playing video games in virtual reality and doing God-knows-what-else speaks to both the child and the romantic in me.

I mean, these are things that have captivated me since I was a child, and to this day still make me tremble when I think of how close we are to reaching them.

Things that we have thought were impossible and even unthinkable are now just within the realm of possibility. It may take a decade or two, but the simple knowledge that these developments are within reach is incredibly satisfying. Now personally, I think immortality is a bit much to be aiming for but if you aim for the moon and miss, you still hit stars.

So even if that specific goal is just a bit too high up to reach, who knows what else we will find while we’re up there?

Our parents may not have had the opportunity to see us drive around in flying cars, but maybe we’ll be able to see our kids pilot theirs.