Living With Machines

Robotic machines are now an everyday part of our lives. Things such as computers, toasters and even baseball softball pitching machines are utilized to help us in our day -to -day life. It’s quite easy to stand inside a batting cage and hit a round of balls that appear to be the same to those pitched by a real human. What kind of moral questions do such creations bring out? Is it fine to be so reliant on machines? My concern is not with machines taking over our lives in any scary movie sense, I don’t expect batting cages to come to life and try to destroy us all, but our reliance on machines to do the work that was done by humans less than a few decades years ago marks a massive change in the way we live our lives. This behavior is worth thinking about.

Obviously, with the inception of the internet, our whole mode of being has been altered. It’s hard to imagine what it would have been like for Native Americans, for example, or even Europeans who lived in a country setting. These people would have seen perhaps only a few hundred faces in their lifetime, while we may talk with that many humans within the time of just a year, and the number of faces we see can barely be counted.

While the changes may seem insignificant, it has to be admitted that such a way of life will have effects on our brains themselves. It’s been reported that the brain is physically changed by the sensations and experiences it receives, so to say what we view changes our brain is in no way over the top.

Has the growing use of robotics had a positive effect on our lives? If we consider this in terms of convenience and superficial happiness, there’s no doubt that it has. It has never been easier to have food and entertainment delivered to our door within minutes of our desire to have them. But this, of course, is only true for those in wealthy situations living in developed countries. In order to live like this, there are others in poorer countries who must do the work of making the shoes, joining the machines and packing the boxes. It goes without saying that the majority of these workers will be unfairly paid for their work, as those in the developed countries would be unwilling to pay a higher price for things which we feel are our right.

Along with the violation of other humans is the violation of non-human life. The way we act towards nature appears to be a near abusive relationship, with man simply taking what they can view around them and staking it out as his own.

Undoubtedly, such a negative relationship with the world surrounding us has begun to have seriously damaging effects on the way we’re able to live our own lives of comfort. When nature and machine come into conflict, it is nature that humans will have to have more in order to go on living. One would wish that we are able to see this reality before it’s too late.