Why We Need to Build Robots We Can Trust

Robotics and artificial intelligence

Robotics and artificial intelligence are an integral part of our daily lives. This combination assists us in almost every task. From studies to entertainment, technology makes everything easier and more efficient.

The modern day standard of living is on a constant surge because of AI and robots. Furthermore, they also help industries in cost-cutting as well as HR management.

However, there are many people doubting the credibility of artificial intelligence and robots. Despite their robustness and efficiency, they lack the ‘trust’ factor. How legitimate are their claims? Shall we really trust technology and AI?

Major Drawback of AI : Robotics and artificial intelligence

Studies show that AI robots are developing a gender and racial bias in terms of computer vision. For instance, AI models automatically suggest the gender of a person after analysing the background. This means if AI detects a kitchen, then the model suggests that the person is a woman.

Furthermore, autocorrect suggestions also have a gender bias. It automatically associates the objects in a sentence to a particular gender.

Even though this is very subtle, it raises serious concern towards artificial intelligence and robotics. Tech gurus claim that uncontrolled AI might lead to a repressive future dominance. However, we can’t just drop them out of our lives. This is due to the fact that they make our lives way much easier.

How Can We Overcome This?

It is very clear that abandoning AI robots would be foolish. Instead of taking such an extreme measure, we can simply resolve this issue. Since output of an AI model depends on training data, we can tweak it. That means, we can preprocess the data by making it gender neutral as well as equalising other features.

Furthermore, another way to deal with this bias is to neutralize it. Instead of giving it the features which can lead to a bias, we can simply remove them. Obviously, it is impossible in every case, but we can do some wherever it is necessary.

Additionally, robotics and artificial intelligence algorithms can also be tweaked accordingly. In this way, they’ll focus on other important features instead of race/gender. We must remember that unlike humans, AI robots are emotionless. We can modify and control them in their nascent stages.

Why Should We Trust AI?

Ayanna Howard explains this query in a brilliant way. We are very well aware of the fact that robotics and artificial intelligence don’t operate on emotions. They can’t sense danger and hence, are useful in lethal situations. For instance, in case of a fire, we can deploy AI robots to extinguish it from dangerous spots.

Furthermore, artificial intelligence and robots can also guide us while we’re in a panic mindset. They don’t lose rationality and hence, are very useful in stressful/fatigue situations. We need to trust AI robots in such moments. There are no cons of AI unless they’re trained on malicious data.

Our Take

Robotics and artificial intelligence have a positive potential for growth. If trained properly, AI robots can be a lot more efficient than humans. Furthermore in dangerous situations, we must trust AI if we are sure that the model relies on legitimate data without any biases.

 

To save human lives from unforeseen circumstances, we need to take a leap of faith. Therefore, we need to build the robots we can trust.