As our class touches on science in our world, I think it would interesting to address another branch of science: social science. In class we often take a topic in science and then address how it affects us (human beings). For example, in class once Andrew brought up the idea if animals can be gay. After this he asked the class how this affects our community as a whole.

Bringing the same teaching style as Andrew to the table I thought it would be curious to analyze and bring about the argument of whether or not technology is good or bad. Recently it was brought to my attention that a Home Depot in California is getting rid of their employees and substituting them with robots instead. This decision brought about much discussion in the science community as well as the political community.

For starters , this isn’t helping our already bad economic situation. Think about how many jobs are being taking away from actual humans. We already know that there are so many Americans without jobs given the unemployment rate in America is 5.8%. In the end this may leave a negative affect on our economy. “The Pew Research Center asked 1,900 technology experts if robots will help or hurt the workforce over the next 10 years. Nearly half (48%) envision a future in which robots displace significant numbers of workers. The remaining 52% say automation will not displace more jobs than it creates by 2025.”

Others worry about the possibly of these robots malfunctioning and possibly hurting the human customer it is serving. To them in a way we have no control of the flaws and possible negative mishaps these robots might cause. To a human we find this alarming because in a sense we have lack of control and certainty. Take for instance a man in Sweden who was attacked and almost killed in 2007 by one of the industrial robots at his work place ( the same type of robots that will be in Home Depot in Cali). According to the actual malfunction the situation at hand was : “Thinking he had cut off the power supply, the man approached the robot with no sense of trepidation. But the robot suddenly came to life and grabbed a tight hold of the victims head.”

Another aspect where technology is harmful to our economic system is the idea that computers may soon take away teachers and result in no need for actual classrooms. Many classes are now online and do not require a physical teacher;  but rather a programmed operating system to do all of the manual work instead. In today’s society you can now get a degree online and not have to spend a single minute in the class room. This ranges all the way to young kids being able to be home schooled right from home on their computers.

While some may view the idea of new technology as being a good things other beg to differ. Like Andrew mentioned in class science is not always good. New things/ideals that we think are good sometimes end up bad (smoking, thalidomide, etc.) Could this be the same for science and its new discoveries. In the end, there isn’t many experimental studies on this topic as that would be very difficult but currently we can infer that there is observational studies going on given how new this problem is. It is safe to say that maybe in about ten years or so we will see true results and strong correlations between technology and its effects on society as a whole.

http://instamun.org/meet-lowes-new-robot-retail-workers/

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/06/tech-experts-see-good-and-bad-sides-of-robots/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-nelson/too-much-technology-is-bad-for-the-brain_b_5448015.html