Space Exploration and Artificial Intelligence are the two most exciting fields of science which are under active research and development. Both seem to be an important part of the future of humanity. Here I would talk about the idea of keeping space exploration at a higher priority than AI and robotics (until a time). First we discuss briefly the problems that Robots could pose to earth. So, What do We Aim to Create?When we talk about artificial intelligence, the first thing that comes to our mind is 'Robots'. They are the most important application of AI. Creating robots that can actually think like at least animals is so exciting! We could even create something that could mimic a human and his emotions! We could in future create a new complete living species (able to survive on its own). But that poses a problem. Our Ecosystem is Not Prepared For The New Life FormWe are creating a new living species! And these aren’t a part of the natural process of evolution. They are created by us and is a new form of life. The life on earth and the ecosystem isn’t prepared for working with such a new form of life. The robots we build operate on electricity. And the sources of electricity are things that are harmful for the biological life on earth. We could create cleaner and greener sources of energy. This could possibly solve the energy problem. But the problem doesn’t end here. The materials that we use to create robots is bad for nature. We create robots from metal, plastics etc. That aren’t biodegradable. In case of any damage to a robot (its death), its residuals would just remain on earth, without getting decomposed. They would remain on earth as garbage and would pollute the ecosystem. As the population of robots increase, this garbage would continuously increase and keep killing the nature. We can’t let robots kill our mother earth so easily! Could we? We already are worried about Overpopulation. Then why do we create even more people?We now face a serious problem of overpopulation. The resources that we need to keep humans alive are depleting very fast. And the population of humans is increasing. Many people can’t get enough food to eat daily. Even more don’t get a good place to live. Even more have to live in really bad conditions. Even more don’t get a happy life and the list of problem goes on. There are just a few humans that get a good satisfactory life. The reason – overpopulation. Problems such as poverty persists due to unemployment. Robots would take up the jobs of humans in future and humans would suffer even more problems due to this! We already have many people and not all of them are working for humanity. Making robots multiplies the problem. Also they could make us physically inactive and lazy. Eventually this could make us unfit for expansion of humans in the galaxy. Read more about this HERE. We know about these problems. But What is its relation with space Exploration? Space exploration could help us solve these problems as well as develop robots in the future. How? Let’s see. We are making progress in space exploration and striving hard to get to Mars. If in the future, we are able to go to Mars and colonize it, it would help us reduce the burden on earth. If we are lucky enough that we create Mars as a habitable place, we would have several problems solved. We would even try colonizing other planets we could reach in the future. Here I would discuss about colonizing mars and a similar theory could be applied to colonizing multiple planets. We could have much more spaceWe today require a lot a space for building several structures essential for the human society like houses, farms, factories, hospitals etc. To build these, we cut trees on a very large scale to get more space. This in turn pollutes the earth and damages our ecosystem. If we colonize mars, we would be able to build these structures on Mars and reduce the burden on earth. We would then be able to plant more trees on earth and reduce the pollution on earth. In future we might see earth much more beautiful than today. You might have a question in this context. Even if we build buildings on Mars, we would still need them on earth. Then how does it solve the problem? There are two answers to this –
We would have better chances of survivalWe are under a threat of extinction. Our population is increasing too fast. Soon we will be running out of space, out of food. We our destroying the earth. We are going to die! Why? Because we are too many! Earth can’t support such a large population of humans. We all need too many buildings to live. We cut trees to get more space and pollute the earth. Soon the earth would be unable to support life after we have killed it with our poisonous gases. Not just that. We can anytime go extinct. There are so many natural hazards ready to kill us. An asteroid might smash onto earth and kill us all. A gamma ray burst pointing straight towards earth might vaporize all the life on earth. These are just few of examples. There are so many ways we can all go extinct. The only way we can prevent this is spread ourselves to different parts of the universe so that we have a better chance of survival. This makes space exploration even more important. And doing it as quickly as possible is what we should do. This is because we will soon run out of resources and food. Making investments in space exploration would help us find more ways to survive. We can even create a planet of robotic lifeOnce we have a good way of travelling through the universe fast and quickly, we can find a planet to support robotic life. It should have enough sources of energy for our robots to survive. We could send a bunch of robots there and create a new form of life! A planet full of robotic life! Isn’t it exciting? We our creating a real life Cybertron! This idea seems to be unnecessary because creating robotic life on a planet is in no way beneficial for us. But if you think in a broader perspective, we might be able to preserve our signs in the universe this way. We might even become a ‘God’ sort of species by creating an entire species of life. This might be the way our gods created us. Another perspective would be that we could in future transfer our consciousness to these robots and continue to survive. Robots are able to survive in much worse conditions than us. They don’t need Oxygen to live. They just need energy in any form. Robots have a better chance of survival with a human brain inside it. Once we have solved these problems, We have space as well as time to develop RobotsOnce we have solved the problems of the human civilization, we would have time to develop robots. We would then have enough space for accommodating robots as a part of our society. Also, we would have time to develop robots as we are no more afraid of going extinct. Then, robots could help us a lot to explore the Universe and expand human race even further. Creating robots at such a large extend that we wish to would be very unsafe on earth. It would create many more problems on earth (as discussed earlier). But doing so when we have colonized multiple planets wouldn’t create any problems and would help us expand our civilization in the universe. This gives the reason why I say that space exploration should be our first priority. Let me know what you think about it by commenting below. Thanks for Reading! Do share and comment.
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We are striving towards making our robots more intelligent, stronger and faster. We want them to be able to move their bodies swiftly. We want them to be at least as swift as humans or even more if possible. So far, we have recorded an exponential growth in the intelligence of robots but in terms of physical speed, we haven't made much progress. We use electric motors as our primary source for producing motions in robots. Motors can get really fast but fast motors aren't strong enough to help the robots to lift things. Strong motors with much higher torque are slower. If you want both, the power consumption is high and you still can't get a very good combination of speed and power. So, how are we humans so fast as well as strong? Why don't we make something human like? It is our Muscles! We have found a solution! If we our able to build muscles and place them inside a robot, it would become fast and strong. How Could we make Muscles?We just can't ask god, "Oh God! How did you make our Muscles? Teach me to make muscles!". We have to find it out ourselves. Scientists have worked hard and finally found different ways to make electronic muscles. Some of the ways we could make muscles are -
Hydraulic ActuatorsHydraulic Actuators using large cylindrical actuators are one of the oldest methods of creating strong robotic arms. Its works on the principle of Pascal's Law - F = P x A P = F1 / A1 and P = F2 / A2 As pressure is same, F1 / A1 = F2 / A2 F2 = (A2 / A1) x F1 If you apply a less force to a small area, you can get a larger force on a greater area, as pressure is constant i.e. if A2 is much greater than A1, we can amplify F1 to a large extent and get a high force output. Where do we bring the pressure from? We would use pumps operated by electrical power. Sometimes it is better to use a diesel engine to output more power to large cranes. But for a smaller robot, electrical pumps are good enough. There is a limitation to it. The output piston drives at a much lower speed. Modifications to this can help us achieve various speeds or even variable speeds. I'm not going in details of the variations. This has several advantages
Pneumatic Artificial MusclesThese are similar to hydraulic actuators. They were developed in 1950s to create artificial limbs. It consists of a flexible bladder connected to a pump which pumps in or out pressurised air. When the bladder fills up, it has to occupy more volume. So, it contracts in length. This is similar to the way human muscles work. We can move our hands by a combination of contraction and relaxation of our muscles. These muscles could be used in pairs of two (like our biceps and triceps) to move and arm. The following GIF animation from Wikipedia could give you an idea of how it works - It has many advantages over hydraulic actuators, the most important being the power to weight ratio. Hydraulic Actuators are strong and powerful. But they are heavy - very heavy. In contrast, Pneumatic Actuators have a high power to weight ratio. They are very light and small. Building smaller actuators is easy. We could even use a complex set of muscles with the Pneumatic Actuators. The limitation to it is that its force is limited by the pressure the bladder can handle. Two high pressure could lead in making the muscle burst. This technology is gas operated. But, we could even use a liquid. A liquid would rather provide more mechanical stiffness than a gas. Finally Pneumatic Muscles have these advantages -
Shape Memory MusclesSome Alloys, called Shape Memory Alloys exhibit properties that helps them 'Remember' their shape! When they are heated to a high temperature and then shaped into a desired shape. When cool, they can be bent or deformed. When they are heated slightly, they move and regain their original shape they were shaped into first! It is just incredible! They can also bend and regain their shape on application of current. This property of these alloys is useful in various applications. We could bend these wires in the shape of a spring. Then use them as muscles. When they are stretched, they get deformed. On application of heat or current, they would contract to form the spring again. This operation could be used as muscles. Just like muscles contract and relax, they can also contract and relax. Just like the above two, it also has limitations. The deformation of Muscle Wires should not exceed a certain limit, beyond which, they won't regain their shape. Also, they cannot provide much mechanical stiffness to the system. They have to be supplied with power continuously to make the arm remain in a static state. Advantages of shape memory alloys are -
So, which is the best?All these different ways to make muscles have their own advantages and we can't rank them in a single list. Each has its own different applications and benefits. Hydraulic Actuators are good for very big and strong robots. Pneumatic Muscles good for smaller, more human scaled robots. While, Shape Memory Wires are good for even smaller robots. There are many other ways out their that can be used to create artificial muscles. Widely, they are similar to the above. But the ways they are operated are different. If you want me to write about another Artificial Muscle, you could Contact Me! Thanks for Reading! Do share and comment.Today we are facing a problem of getting the best out of the government. But democracy in today's world has a lot of problems. Corruption is one of the biggest. You can't have a perfect human which can be perfectly loyal to impart his duties towards the people. Providing justice quickly and easily is another big problem. We can't quickly execute a person without a proper evidence. Getting that evidence and presenting it properly takes time and where the population is really big, it takes even more time. In a democracy, development is in all fields but is really slow. Autocracy is another form of governance where we get really fast development and progress in really many fields. If the ruler is just and good, a nation could easily rise to heights of development and progress. Then why did we leave autocracy and replaced it with democracy. Because autocracy absolutely depends on the ruler. If the ruler isn't good, the nation could go really unmanageable. Autocracy is a form where you can get developed or you can get ruined. Democracy doesn't have this problem. Development might be slow but it will be there. So, finally there is no other choice than democracy for a modern civilization. But if we can't change the government, what if we upgrade it? We could replace humans by a more loyal species like robots. Robots are absolutely loyal towards their duties. They are never selfish, so there is no scope for money and development based corruption. What if we replaced the human government, with an automated government? Create a Special Purpose RobotWe can create some special purpose robots to perform government related task. We could send those to different places of the country to manage the people and their problems. We can then connect them to a network and a central server could monitor their working. Connecting them to a network would help in coordination of the entire government so well that humans could never do. The robots would be non-selfish and so, there is no chance that any person could bribe any official to hinder the system of government. Justice would be non-biased and not money based. Justice could also be given quickly due to the speed of robots in such specialised tasks. Development in different fields could be monitored and it could be made sure that everyone gets a chance to progress in whichever field he or she wants to and the government could ensure every possible resource for people to progress. Such stuff are mathematical and robots are really good at it. For tasks like police and army, machine assisted humans would be the best choice. We cannot have a robot police because in any case of malfunctioning, robot police could create bad situations. I would also emphasis the need of making SPECIAL PURPOSE GOVERNANCE robots and not an intelligent AI robot to rule us. You can read my previous article where I explain why the robots should be special purpose and not general purpose. Also, we don't want another ruler who could be an autocrat and any time turn upon us, finding us a threat to robots. We only want to create a robotic system intelligent enough to handle the government - no more, no less. But there still are problemsAs any other form of government, robotic governance has its own problems. And there are quite many of them.
We Created A Faster Form Not A Better OneA robotic government could evolve the today's democracy to work faster but it doesn't create a new form of government. This couldn't be a revolution in governance but just an evolution in speed. At first it was looking like a revolution to create a new fully automated robotic government, but at last, it is another democracy which is just faster than today's democracy. So, overall, it does make a difference and could be a good idea. But the expenses we would need to bear would be quite a lot than what we would be getting. Thanks for Reading !! Do share and comment.
UnemployementWe are making quite a progress in creating robots to do almost anything and everything. A robot labour is far more cheaper than a human one. So, if we continued to make multitasking and multipurpose robots, we would take away the job oppurtunities from other humans. Every industrialist would want as cheap labour as possible and machines are far more cheaper than humans. We already are facing unemployement problems and robots could make it even worse. Humans Getting LazyAs humans would get there own cheap assistant to do all their work, they would want to do anything but sit back comfortable and eat and enjoy. This kind of laziness would make humans physically weak. Also, laziness would affect their minds and would make humans less thoughtful. There would be very less people talking about getting to the other planets and living there. We today wish to get to Mars and other planets. If we want to survive, we have to get to other planets. But lazy humans cannot accomplish this. So What Can we Do?What could possibly do now to develop our technology but not robots? One of the most active field of research today is robotics and people are getting more and more involved in this field. Students love this, even I do. But we could use robots in a better tasks. We could make special purpose robots fir assisting humans in particular fields of work, like what military robots are doing by helping our soldiers. Or we could build exploration robots and send them to space, to help humans in space exploration and finding inhabitable planets. We could build helper robots for surgery. We could build helper robots to help you exercise and keep you physically fit. We can also build technologies to strenghthen humans, like exoskeletons. So, we should build special purpose robots, making sure that they are helpers to humans - empowering humans and not replacement for humans. We have to build helpers and not assistant to do all our work. Do Share You views by commenting |
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AuthorAnish Sharma - A Student and the owner of this website. Archives |