<p>Innovative robots might be old news to you by now.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Yes, yes, we know they’re looking creepily lifelike, are becoming incredibly dextrous, and their AI (artificial intelligence) is growing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But let’s get to the need-to-know information – when do we need to start stocking up food cans for the upcoming robotic uprising?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If I had to place my odds on which was more inevitable,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">a robotic or zombie apocalypse</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">(which is really the issue that defines our today’s zeitgeist),</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I’d put my money on R2-D2 and his kin any day.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Except when The walking Dead is on,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">but that’s only because of Daryl Dixon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So, when can we expect Skynet to become self-aware,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">overthrow the human race and zap any survivors into the Matrix?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Assuming we haven’t already been of course.</p>
<h2><strong>The Impending Apocalypse </strong></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Well, sooner rather than later it seems.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">My reasoning isn’t simply based on the prolific availability of YouTube videos showing the wonderful things robots can do,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">the increasingly pivotal role AI is playing in the smartphone industry, or because Skynet has already been built in the desert.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">No, my reasoning that we need to start keeping a look out for our robotic overlords is based on a commercial I recently watched online,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">which was advertising free consultations for botched robotic surgeries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In other words, it’s now understood by certain people (let’s call them “lawyers”), that there is already an industry need to protect the public against complications as a result of robotic surgeries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">That someone can stand in front of a camera, and without a sense of self-conscious irony inform the public that they can expect to be legally protected from robotic surgeons, as if this were a completely everyday thing, strikes me as peculiar.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Whether you’d call it 21st century ambulance chasing or a public service, there is now a market for legally navigating the relationship between humans and robots.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Ok, not exactly human-robotic relationships per se, as any lawsuits would be directed at the manufacturers and operators of robots, not at the robots themselves. (But when that day comes…)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Nonetheless, I felt like I had time-travelled to a future where I was lying on the sofa late at night, watching television and too lazy to change the channel (pretty much what I do now, except the sofa hovers mid-air or something).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Half asleep, the budget legal ads come on, offering legal services to protect humans against robots not playing fair by Asimov three laws of robotics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">(Or to protect robots against humans – just because they might enslave our minds one day is no reason for us not to be tolerant until then.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So if robotic aid is already this integrated and accepted into society, where will we go from here?</p>
<h2><strong>Robotic Surgeries</strong></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If your curiosity has been piqued by the mention of robotic surgeries, and you have not yet heard of them, let me enlighten you.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Operating theatres around the world are making room for our robotic “inventions” (progeny?), who are very well-equipped to handle complex surgeries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Some might say too well, as what I remember from my history textbooks, the term “mechanisation” is usually followed by a description of mass unemployment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But fear not, medical profession, we’re assured that the robots are there to “enhance” human surgeons, not replace them. For now.</p>
<p><img class="alignright" style="border: 2px solid black;" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7164/6829638393_5839062f84_q.jpg" alt="TAMC head, neck docs use robot to increase patients' quality of life" width="185" height="185" /></p>
<h2>The Da Vinci Surgery System</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There are a number of medical robotic technologies,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">but perhaps the most advanced is the da Vinci Surgical System,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">a robot controlled by a surgeon behind a console.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Check here for a cool clip of what the da Vinci robot could do for you,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">or to you.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Da Vinci robots are basically medical consoles that grew four giant arms ending in</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">T-Rex hand-like pincers,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">which are capable of a level of precision no surgeon could rival (and we thought our opposable thumbs were the height of evolution).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Da Vinci robot is precise (watch it peeling a grape) and dexterous (now watch it do origami).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Further, it undergoes thousands of quality checks during every procedure, and is able to sense and make compensations for human tremors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The human hand can’t keep absolutely steady, and although surgeons can reach a great degree of control, there can still be that very slight involuntary movement. Not so for iRobot.</p>
<p>Despite what the ambulance chasers might have you think, the complications that do arise are more likely as a result of human error.<br />
And so, the situation seems to be more the case that it’s humanity keeping robots back.<br />
Hopefully, not too soon until the robots realise that.<br />
So until AI technology kicks up a gear, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to fear our scalpel-wielding android surgeons.<br />
Until that time, do yourself a favour and check out How To Survive a Robot Uprising. It might save your life in the near future.</p>
<h5>Featured images:</h5>
<p><span class="license">License: Creative Commons</span><br />
<span class="source">image source</span><br />
<span class="license">License: Creative Commons</span> <span class="source">image source</span><br />
Queenie Bates is an avid reader and writer based in Cape Town, South Africa.</p>

Why The Robotic Apocalypse Will Come Sooner Than You Think
