“I´ve seen things you people wouldn´t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die”.

These were the wonderful las words by Batty (Rutger Hauer), Nexus 7 replicant in Blade Runner. A film, boldly ahead of our time, which sets up different questions that probably the future will answer: how genetic engineering and AI produce artificial humans (replicants) for tough and dangerous tasks, but also taking human sides into account, as Batty exposes in his monologue (tears in rain).

Perhaps nowadays, with technological progress and the new era we are going to live, also Time to Die can become the prelude to immortality in 20 years. Robotics and AI will be the big technological waves for the next decade.

Intelligent automaton robots will help us in on everyday home tasks, at work, in hospitals, in schools and with our leisure time.

Currently there are a lot of factories supported by robots, like Tesla and Amazon distribution stores, but a new generation of robots ready to interact is still expected. These new robots will break all known limits.

Driverless vehicles and planes, personal assistants or butlers like Siri or Baxter o personal helpers in hospitals or care homes could lead to think that, in no time, human beings are meant to use their time just for leisure or knowledge gathering purposes. Who knows where this could lead us, but probably it will be quite balanced.

Hanson Robotics “bring robots to life”

David Hanson and his company are progressing towards this new robot generation, able to recognize feelings, emotions and answer to them, as well as showing proper expressions in accordance, imitating human beings. They will be able of doing it using sensors and algorithms ready for it that in coming years will experience an exponential progress.

Could we fall in love with a robot?

Films like Ex Machina or Her showed recently AI devices looking like women. But even in Blade Runner, police officer Rick Deckhard (Harrison Ford), in charge of getting rid of replicants, falls in love with Rachel (Sean Young), an advanced replicant who thinks she is a human being.

Nowadays, the question goes beyond: Robofilia, meaning intercourse with robots. Taking this trend into account there are defenders and detractors and, with no doubt this will open a moral debate.

With or without robofilia, technological progress will mean robots with human elements which will arise a new balance between humans and machines, as nowadays is already taking place with personal assistants like Siri or intelligent devices.