Will robots replace humans? Hope it's not in our lifetime

"So we are doomed! And we are inflicting doomsday upon us ourselves? I mean, I get it if we need machines to complement us, help us. but replace us?"

I am, frankly, not too thrilled about technology mimicking human actions. There was a time when I espied R2D2 (of Star Wars fame) on the screen, and thought to myself, "Oh my, what a cute thing! Why can't I have a friend like R2D2 in my life?" But these days, with discussions on the imminence of robots invading our lives and driverless cars invading our roads becoming a mainstay at dinner tables - to the accompaniment of someone squealing, "Can't wait for my very own driverless car! Imagine: I can actually paint my nails while I'm being driven to work. by my CAR!" - I'm worried.
I fret over frivolous stuff like: Will there be a robot cleaning my apartment in a few years' time? (Reportedly, robots will soon enact the role of a "doting maid" so wonderfully well that one wouldn't know the difference between human and machine.) And then some serious ponder: Will there be one doing my job at work? This 'thing' will never fall sick or take leave to visit the parents (or maybe robots will get a set of parents as well, as demanding as human prototypes), and will have zero margin of error (it's all programmed not to fail!) - so obviously I will be made redundant sooner than I can say "I, Robot".
Two incidents occurred over the fortnight which just went by, that's gotten me more stressed than usual. The first was when my friend showed me how her car parked itself right in front of my house. Now, I've heard about this self-parking "facility" that automobiles are being blessed with nowadays, and I believe it's fairly common; but I'd never seen a car self-park with my own eyes. It was spooky: my friend removed her hands from the steering, reclined in her (driver's) seat, and smirked at the look of utter disbelief flitting across my face because the steering wheel was moving clockwise and anti-clockwise on its own, and the car wheels were performing all sorts of manoeuvres to fit into its designated space. The parking, accomplished in less than 30 seconds, was faultless. You could get a geometry box, pull out rulers and protractors, measure lines and angles - and they would all be perfect. "Can you do that again?" I spluttered, while she dissolved into laughter.
The second incident was far more cerebral. Literally. Yet another friend dropped by; she was visiting Dubai on work. While devouring mutton biryani (and exclaiming how incredibly tasty it was), she suddenly slipped in how a good friend of hers was doing research on the workings of the human brain - with the intent of programming those findings into machines. You know, robots.
Er, meaning what exactly?
She sighed (at by dumbness, no doubt) and explained that nuanced reactions human beings experience are being "diagnosed and restructured" so they can be replicated into a robot's template. "So, instinctive reactions? Reflexes?" I prodded. Yup. "A robot's thought process is being engineered in a manner so its responsive mechanism becomes human-like."
"Humans are helping machines to become. human-like?" was my scientific interpretation. "Will robots also be taught to eat? Relish food - the way we are relishing this biryani...?"
"No! That's their advantage, they won't take lunch breaks and coffee breaks."
"So we are doomed! And we are inflicting doomsday upon us ourselves? I mean, I get it if we need machines to complement us, help us. but replace us? Is that where we are going?" There was some nervous titter from her side. "I think you are being way too dystopian. And look at it this way: if such an eventuality were to take place, it will not happen in our lifetimes." Pause. "Hopefully."
sushmita@khaleejtimes.com