As technology continues to rapidly develop, what was once considered merely science fiction now looks like it could very well be the new reality for the future of humanity.
We have self-driving electric cars, we purchase items with plastic cards by tapping a machine and we can FaceTime people from different parts of the world with a push of a button. These modern, everyday amenities are examples of technology that was once considered “science fiction” by previous generations.
I firmly believe, that unless Jesus Christ returns sometime soon, we are headed for a sci-fi future and AI is the precursor for a machine-dominated tomorrow.
“Generation Alpha, broadly defined as those born between 2010 and 2024, is growing up with generative AI as a readily available, often seamlessly integrated, part of their environment,” according to Forbes.
Generation Z is the last generation to exist before introducing AI to the public, which is a mind-blowing and scary fact. For me and everyone else, AI was a new and groundbreaking technological innovation. As for kids born after 2010, it is just another study tool – nothing out of the ordinary.
But the fact that AI can create complex papers with just a prompt copy and pasted into the search engine or take real-life people and fabricate realistic videos, tells me that we are just at the beginning of a foreboding sci-fi future.
The days after tomorrow may also be distorted by technological enhancements since there is a prevalence of robots being created to work human jobs. We already see many restaurants employing robot servers to bring food to tables, robotic vacuum cleaners working on their own and even robotic dogs are being developed by Stanford University and the Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute.
“Someday, when quakes, fires, and floods strike, the first responders might be packs of robotic rescue dogs rushing in to help stranded souls. These battery-powered quadrupeds would use computer vision to size up obstacles and employ doglike agility skills to get past them,” according to The Stanford Report.
The Jetsons, a classic Hanna-Barbera TV show, showcased multiple robotic servants and even one of the major characters was a robot maid. People back then thought it was crazy to have robots doing average daily housework, but now we have robots purposely designed to rescue lives.
If we can have a robotic dog save someone from a fire, then we could certainly have a robot cooking dinner in the near future.
Things as simple as Siri or Alexa are also a sign of things to come. We can ask them questions, and they respond with humanlike answers. We can even connect them to our houses and ask them to turn the lights on and off.
If you ask me, movies like “WALL-E,” “The Matrix” and even the sci-fi elements of the “Star Wars” movie franchise do not seem too far off when picturing a futuristic landscape. Let’s just hope that humanity’s technological future does not morph into the post-apocalyptic setting from “Terminator.”
Warden is the opinion editor for the Liberty Champion.