AI-driven robots can transform our lives. Are we ready for them?

Great power comes with greater risks. Organisations and governments need to address them.

- Amy Wong and Alvin Eng

If you've watched the Iron Man movies, you will be familiar with Jarvis, the advanced AI assistant of Marvel superhero Tony Stark.

The omnipresent assistant, whose name stands for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, flawlessly manages Stark's empire, controls advanced technologies and provides real-time data analytics.

A world where robots with skills like these are part of our everyday reality - rather than running fictional empires - may not be as far-fetched as you'd imagine.

It is hard to overstate the transformation that AI-driven robots bring to industries. They are already everywhere - in restaurants serving drinks or taking customers to their seats, in hotels welcoming guests and in the healthcare industry distributing medicine to patients.

These robots offer speed and precision, with their language processing capabilities and seeming emotional intelligence. They can analyse customers' emotional states like frustration or happiness and respond accordingly.

But as interaction between human and machine increases, there are ethical risks, societal shifts and consequences we cannot afford to ignore. Are we truly ready to welcome these robots into our lives?

ROBOTS AT YOUR SERVICE

The service robotics market - where robots provide assistance to human workers in areas including healthcare, retail and hospitality - is exploding, with projections showing revenue nearly doubling from US$36 billion (S$49 billion) in 2024 to US$62 billion by 2029.

This shows the immense potential of service robots, even if most of them don't yet rival the sophisticated intelligence depicted in the Iron Man movies.

But rapid advancements in technology are paving the way for more intuitive robots that have the capability to adapt to user preferences and improve their speed and consistency.