Friday, March 1, 2013

MIT scientist: Androids will take over our jobs and this is good news

Andrew McAfee of MIT says that it is inevitable that our world will eventually be heavily populated with robots and androids.

"Our machines are demonstrating skills that they have never, ever had before," he said at the TED2013 conference on Wednesday. "The day is not too far off that androids are going to be doing a lot of the work we do now."

McAfee, a management theorist at MIT's Center for Digital Business, thinks this is good news for two reasons. First, he said, "technological progress allows us to continue this amazing run we are on" in which prices go down and products and quality exponentially improves. "This is abundance!" he said.

Second, McAfee said once the androids take over a large number of job functions, we won't have drudgery on the job any longer — we will have a new society.

"What could possibly go wrong?" he asks. "I'll worry about robots becoming aware and taking over when my computer becomes aware of my printer," he joked.

For more of the Ars Technica story: arstechnica.com

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