Robot or Human – Who Will Greet You On Your Next Trip?
The degree and speed of our world’s rapidly advancing technology seems a little creepy to me at times. There’s something about watching the commercial for Amazon Echo that makes me uncomfortable. We’re used to Siri, so what’s different? I think it’s about people coming home to an empty house and having a conversation with their robot… It just feels like with each advancement, human interaction is being eradicated.
Like it or not, technology will advance with or without us hitting the ‘like’ button. As tech continues to takes over more jobs with artificially intelligent ‘bots’, how do we fill the gap? The controversy surrounding robot vs human grows with each move forward.
Already Here
You’re probably seeing it more often, as it becomes a bigger part of the travel industry. Several airports have avatars and robots to greet their passengers and answer questions. Your car can be parked by robots and returned by virtue of your itinerary and license plate #. ‘Bots’ check and return baggage. The list goes on. There’s self-luggage tagging, self-boarding and robotic information desks.
flickr photo shared by vmax137 under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-ND ) license
In the hotel sector, Tokyo seems to be leading the pack. At their Nagasaki theme park hotel, the main staff at the Henn-na Hotel are humanoid robots. The receptionist, concierge, baggage and room service ‘bots’ blink, make eye contact and chat. The hotel expects to make use of these androids for 90% of their services in the future. A robot delivering your extra pillows?! Ummm, I don’t know. I’m thinking creepy. Okay. Cool, but creepy. On the bright side, I don’t think ‘tip’ computes!
The U.S. isn’t far behind. NYC’s Yotel has automated check-in, check-out and a luggage robot to grab and handle your luggage. The room service robot in the Aloft Cupertino, California will bring the requested towel or toothbrush to your room. Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas has virtual balconies in the interior cabins and a Bionic Bar which employs robot bartenders who respond to your written orders.
flickr photo shared by Scott Beale under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-ND ) license
Here And Testing
Google’s driverless cars are doing well in the testing phase with over a million miles driven. What happens to the driver’s jobs when these cars are released? Uber, for one, is patiently awaiting this technology. IPsoft’s artificially intelligent, Amelia, is being tested for customer service in several industries. Not only can this virtual person speak 20 languages but ‘she’ learns as humans do, adding experience into its knowledge base. She is built to adapt and respond to, not only what people ask, but also what they are feeling. How many people might this replace? Same goes for IBM’s Watson Engagement Advisor, although Watson is focused on what a human cannot do. ‘He’ is programmed to digest and crunch tremendous amounts of data, in a small amount of time, to come up with workable solutions. More than the human brain can handle. While these ‘bots’ aren’t developed enough to take away the need for humans entirely, their creators are working on it.
Are You Pro or Con?
Those “pro artificial intelligence” believe that having robots take care of mundane, repetitive tasks will free up humans to utilize their creative minds. Those “against artificial intelligence” feel that this type of advancement will only take away more jobs and create more problems for we ‘human’ robots. How many years before we can’t tell the difference between the robot or human greeting us at the front desk?
What are your thoughts? Please share!
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