Idea Of Progress Anglais

Notion: IDEA OF PROGRESS

The progress can be defined as an improvement, a development or a technical, scientific or social advances which contributes most of the time to making the world a better place. With several documents such as an article of the Economist about new robots and the Matrix movie, I’m going to tackle the question of technical progress : Machine or automation : is this a boon or a bane ?

First, we’ll analyse the advantages of machines which are more and more present nowadays.

And then we’ll finally see the idea that machines are very important today but has also many flaws, that’s why people should be careful.

I- Machines are improving our lives (advantages) – Machines as a bane :

They are everywhere and became more and more important in human life. Has many benefits for example it’s important :

-in the daily life : improvement of washing machines during the “30 glorieuses” that permit ladies to leave their home in order to start working. It brings independence for women.

-in education domain : today students use lots of technical tools (computers : blackboards are replaced with numeric board…) I can imagine that in a few years students ‘ll take down notes thanks to their smartphones, and maybe in few decades there will be no more professors because there’ll be robots.

-in manufacturing : what is the most impressive is the improving of robots. It really helps workers on their job, they became more efficient and it permits the increasing of the productivity. It’s also cheaper for employers because it has to take less employees. And today we can count more than a million robots in factories around the world.

Indeed in an Article of The Economist : the development of a new low-cost robot, name Baxter (22000€) => low cost judging from other robots (will be more and more in using), but also very safe : has a sonar in its head to detect anyone nearby. (move rapidly, precisely)

However, even if automation seems to be very important and really helps the society to improve it can also be a boon : human have to be careful about it.

II- Machines are also enslaving humans (flaws) – Machine as a boon :

That’s what I could see in The Matrix, the American-australian science fiction movie written by the Wachowski brothers. Reality as perceived by most of humans is actually a simulated reality called “The Matrix” created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their body is used as an energy source. Men have been captured and enslaves by an enemy race of artificially intelligent machines. It’s a metaphora or a way to show that many people are becoming subservient to machines even in real life. This movie emphazised the idea that artificial intelligence is “controlling” human with computer program. This idea can be seen in the reality : with for example robots taking people’s jobs, that doesn’t result the high unemployment rate present in our planet but also bring the question of a submissive world, a world where everybody do the same things, without any individualism without any sentiments…

To my mind automation and machines are admittedly really important

...