What happens when robots surpass humans in every job? Robotics guru Peter Redmond told RT there will always be a place for humanity to explore, hone new skills and sate its curiosity.

Redmond is an inventor, engineer and scientist, who did a lot of amazing things in his life, from teaching Augmented Reality at Trinity College in Dublin, to building a Rubik’s cube solving robot (which held the Guinness record for being the fastest in 2010) to consulting filmmakers on how best to use automation in special effects. RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze spoke to him about the escalating pace of technology development and whether humans would be replaced by their creations.

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A strong proponent of improving life through progress, Redmond believes that humanity will always have a place in the word, even as jobs are taken over by robots.

“Years ago when they were baking bread they didn’t know how to do a spacewalk,” he said. “I think we’ll always look for something. That’s the nature of humans that we are interested in solving problems and finding solutions to difficulties. And the machines will continue helping us, but even when the machines surpass our intelligence we will still be able to work with them and beside them.”

They also talked about advances in augmented reality and remote control of robots, which may soon make showing up in the office in person redundant.

“I think you could probably do it in the next few years, you could do it very effectively,” Redmond predicted. “This is right on a cutting edge of technologies right now, and these developments are happening daily, there are new changes, and new algorithms are coming out to improve that. And the speed of processes, which is really where the bottleneck is for these processes.”

The also spoke about robotic warfare, whether a robotic explorer can reach another galaxy and how human flaws should not be used as a pretext to impede progress. Watch the full interview here.

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