The new gadgets you adore might just replace you.

As various forms of advanced technology improve, robotic machines are taking on the larger role of societal tasks, which makes us physically, environmentally and socially dependent on them.

The most startling and recent innovation in the robotics world is the news that online retail giant Amazon plans to use drones to deliver products with a ‘fast-food-esque’ 30-minutes or less guarantee in the near future, according to Forbes.

The job of the delivery person is now to be replaced by a piece of machinery more at home on the battlefield than in the suburbs of America, and that’s not even mentioning the potential for privacy infringement.

According to BBC, with the world’s elderly population growing rapidly, scientists are suggesting that robots could soon take on some of the burden of providing care, support, and most surprisingly companionship.

Some ways that may see an increase in the use of robots regarding the elderly and disabled persons include mobility support, staff at nursing homes, and in-home care. Everything that a human can do in these fields could theoretically be done by a specifically designed robot. As ‘cool’ as this may seem, it is going to hurt us in the future. Humans will soon be out of work and in the unemployment line, replaced by machines. This decline in income translates into economic decline and a subsequent social snowball effect that inevitably follows.

Several efforts are being carried out to create these robots. Out of the British University of Salford the Carebot P37 S65 is designed to assist with the elderly by specifically reminding them when to take medication and even by telling jokes. The Mobiserv, another robot designed with the intention of assisting older people with everyday tasks, is a collaborative European research project.

Spatio-Temporal Representation and Activities for Cognitive Control in Long-Term Scenarios, known as STRANDS for short, was built at the University of Birmingham. This robot is designed to live among humans in the long term and participate in everyday activities.

Not only are these robots performing previously human jobs, but they also are replacing animals.

Japanese industrial automation pioneer AIST is developing PARO, which is an interactive robot built to imitate therapy animals.

A four-wheeled device, known as Rover, has replaced the conventional sheepdog and is capable of moving a herd of cows from a field to a dairy, according to BBC.

Rover was adapted from another robot that was already being used to monitor fruit and trees on farms. A team at Sydney University’s Centre for Field Robotics modified the robot so that it could be put in a field with cows in order for the researchers to gather data on robot-bovine interaction.

A new version could also collect information useful for farmers, such as: monitoring cows at night that are due to calve, gathering data on soil, and detecting problems with electric fences, according to BBC.

The potential future impact of robotics is chilling. The International Federation of Robotics pronounced that the chemical, rubber, plastic, and food industries have all increased their robotic consumption. In the United States robotic shipments increased to a level of 22,414 units in 2012.

With unemployment rates uncontrollably high for so long the last thing we need is more technology that is able to carry out the jobs we as humans do, in addition to producing a higher quality of work.

The idea may sound ridiculous but recall such dystopian science fiction favorites like “Blade Runner,” “I, Robot,” and “Bicentennial Man.” If things keep moving in the current technological direction, these fantastical movies might hold hints as to what our future interactions with robots could look like.

-Chelsea Keyes is a sophomore communication major from Tacoma. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of Student Publications.