Student Life Aspiring to Be a Lawyer

Morgan is 16 years old, and has just finished her GCSEs, soon to begin 6^th Form, where she will be studying French, Biology and Chemistry, with hopes of becoming a corporate lawyer in the future. She’s soon to begin a part-time job in waitressing. She has an older sister who is studying biochemistry in university, and she has a mother who works as a university advisor. While she doesn’t often use Siri, since she prefers to type, the household all uses the Alexa in the kitchen to play music.

Dreaming of Life in the Countryside

In 2050, Morgan would like to move to the countryside, once her future university work is completed and she can move onto more scientific areas. She would like to have an inclusive society in the future, where everyone is happy and there are no financial barriers, and also suggests that she would like robots that could help with the environment, help in restoring oxygen in the atmosphere, etc. While she hopes that, in the future, robots would be able to aid us at home with household errands, she said it would feel strange, almost like it’s a robot telling you what to do in some cases, even though she knows it would be written and tested by a human.

Robot Images Inspired by “WALL-E”

In Morgan’s eyes, an AI is something man-made that was built to fulfil a purpose and is quite complex, while a robot is something small and cute. In fact, when she envisions what a robot is, her first response is to think of the characters in the movie “Wall-E”. She knows that a lot of people can feel intimidated by the progress in technology, but is excited for the positive implications of future advancements, such as just how much it could help people and improve our lives.

Housework and Childcare Robots

At the individual level, Morgan would like robots at home to help out with household errands, while also having the hidden benefit of playing music, although she would still like to cook for herself, but since no one likes cleaning, she would be comfortable with a robot taking care of that. It would also be helpful for set robot to provide reminders, from alarms to medication tracking, to make sure you take your prescription when needed and can monitor any health issues you might need to record. With childcare, safety is Morgan’s top priority, so ideally if there was to be a robot involved, it would look friendly, as to not scare the child, and it would take care of entertainment. She would not like a robot dog since it would be difficult to form an emotional attachment with a machine, but it would be easier to take care of with no mess to clean. From her experience with her guinea pigs, it is very easy to form a bond with living things, but with technology, like her phone, she does not have any strong feelings and just replaces it when needed. Meanwhile, in schools, she believes it would be beneficial to have AI marking schoolwork, as it’s a long process for both students and teachers and would greatly speed up the process, but also it could be accurate, even though it could struggle with things such as handwriting.

Using Self-Checkout and Medical Robots

Morgan would like to have human peers at work, since it would feel less lonely, but would appreciate AI which could act as an assistant with the job itself. The roles it would fulfil could range from just answering questions to helping with judgements that need to be made to just providing drinks. In retail stores, they enjoy using mostly self-checkouts, and believe it would be good in the long run to avoid rudeness to workers and therefore improving people’s mental health, and she doesn’t think much will change since she doesn’t see going to shops as a social time where human interactions are needed. In healthcare, she has concerns about robots performing surgery, such as when the machine malfunctions or runs out of power but sees using robots or humans to be as reliable as the other. Meanwhile, in care homes, she sees robots as a good things, since everyone would get the same treatment, so no one would feel left out and they’d get as much support as they’d need.

Expectations for Self-Driving Cars

Morgan thinks that using technology as self-driving cars would be better than what we have currently, as it would reduce traffic accidents, and we wouldn’t have issues with dangerous activities such as driving when intoxicated. She’s also comfortable with drones delivering shopping, and participates in online shopping anyway, so it wouldn’t be a big change in her lifestyle. She also sees robots as a good alternative to paramedics, as they would be more helpful and more efficient, and would like robot police, since there have been a lot of issues recently with police abusing their power, and robots wouldn’t do the same. In terms of judgement, she would like robots to take over that too, since humans are prone to emotions interfering and can have outbursts with serious consequences, so she would like politics to be aided by AI which could decide on the most logical path forward. While part of her wanting robots to make decisions is to avoid wars in general, she sees wars as pointless if there are no humans involved: while wars are awful and never acceptable, it would just become a competition of who could have access to better technology. She’d also like robots to help us with environmental protection, especially in generating clean air.

Introducing Technology into Educational Curricula

Morgan is interested in learning more about technology, specifically how robots work, what being defined as a robot includes, and especially about what developments could lead to and what robots could do for us. Therefore, in a school’s syllabus in the future, she would like for schools to include not only education on such topics, but also to have robots present, since having first-hand interaction would provide for a stronger sense of understanding. This will be especially important with technology improving faster and faster, so the students won’t feel left behind in their adult lives. Meanwhile, in the job market, she feels that the point of a job is to get something that you would like, such as the satisfaction of helping people. She believes that robotic development will take away jobs, and even though it would need more people to work in manufacturing, it would take away more jobs than it would create, especially because robots could be programmed to do anything, and because people would need even more training for said jobs, which they may not have access to.