Undoubtedly, you remember the classic Isaac Asimov story, I, Robot, which examines the future where robots serve man's every need, but threaten our very existence.
Robots already exist in many professions. Our cars in Detroit would not be made (wait, are cars still made in Detroit?) without robots assembling them with intricate precision.
Doctors use robots to conduct surgery. NASA would not be sending men up in all the meteorological and climate satellites they have in orbit (although today, sad to say, they had an important climate satellite, Glory, go into the ocean on launch). And that Rover on Mars with its little Tonka Toy scoop? Outstanding.
I recently has a discussion with a NOAA Scientist who was truly impressed by what the oil companies were able to do with the two robots that they sent to the bottom of the ocean and which not only cut off the top of the well head that had blown out but finally was able to put a cap on the pipe. A disaster, no doubt, and one that was probably caused by human error and greed. But the use of robots was the only way that the disaster could be fixed.
Ok, so why this advertisement on removing humans from productive work? Because yesterday on "The World" on PRI I heard the story of Engkey, the Teaching Robot.
Huh?
My first reaction was to turn my car into oncoming traffic and just ending it. Are we so interested in cutting costs that we put robots in the classroom and connect them to Philippine teachers a thousand miles away? Is this really progress?
But I thought this is a good topic for the Teacher's Lounge. How different is this from using on-line learning? I took a course today at NASA and was graded on a test about whether I learned anything and I never saw a human in the process.
We have University of Phoenix giving advanced degrees just like they used to do when you drew the head on the matchbook cover and became a world acclaimed artist.
Is it pointless to try to rail against these winds of change? Are we just all luddites?
I am personally perplexed with the "iPhone Generation" who have zero retention because they don't need retention. They just need the opposible thumbs which are driving the browser on the phone. All knowledge travels at the speed of light.
So while I'm grabbing my coffee in the Teacher's Lounge, let me know what YOU think.