Have You ever met a Robot?

Was it Andrew Martin, the Bicentenial Man? Or was it R2D2 and C3PO? Or perhaps it was Marvin the paranoid android or Mr Data?

Which Robot sparked your interest in the possibilities inherent in combining our humanity with technology?

For me it was ELIZA. In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum created a program which appeared to pass the Turing test. The program, known as ELIZA, worked by examining a user's typed comments for keywords. If a keyword is found, a rule that transforms the user's comments is applied, and the resulting sentence is returned. If a keyword is not found, ELIZA responds either with a generic riposte or by repeating one of the earlier comments. Weizenbaum's program was able to fool some people into believing that they were talking to a real person, with some subjects being "very hard to convince that ELIZA was not human."

I loved ELIZA - the style of psychotherapy was familiar to me as during my time at the University of Durham I was part of a secret organisation called NightLine. We were anonymous volunteers that paired up and took calls through the night from students who needed someone to talk to. We were told not to give advice and instead we employed the same technique as Eliza - listening, and repeating back comments to provide a kind of empathy which encouraged the caller to get it all off their chest.

After completing my undergraduate degree in Philosophy and psychology and went on to do a Masters in Computing Science and I used ELIZA as the basis of my dissertation. The idea that machines could simulate and perhaps even replace human beings was really intriguing to me - I don't think I ever anticipated a rise of the robots or man's subjegation at their hands Matrix style - but I was certainly fascinated by the potential.

And now 20 years on, I see every 2018 Trends article talking about how AI is the thing to watch in the year ahead. Indeed, if we look around intelligent machines are already everywhere. They are in our cars, washing machines, ATMs. Those who have opened their doors to Google Home and Alexa have already given over control to the Internet of Things.

We are surrounded by robots and robotic systems that are capable of assuming every conceivable physical and digital form - from drones to self-checkout counters, from tiny nanobots to the self-driving smartbus my friends at RAC WA have driving around South Perth. I have a vacuum cleaner that trundles around my house to the bemusement of my dog, while I am work. And that chatbots I encounter are actually slightly less annoying than the offshore call-centre agents I argue with about my monthly phone bill.

The complex variety of robots is matched only by the complexity and ambivalence of our relationships with them. The question of whether we need, or even like them is not really ours to ask. Do we actually need Smartphones? 10 Years ago most people would have said no. Today, I'm one of those that gets twichy when it's not in my hand...

Whether robots turn out to be friends or enemies, and whether we control them or vice-versa remains to be seen. And the question whether we should trust robots is perhaps less pertinent than whether we should trust the political-economic complex of humans and organisations behind them. [Was Trump elected because of an army of Russian twitter-bots?]

In the world of work, production, and industry, robots are strongly associated with the fear of job loss. What will happen when people are gradually replaced by intelligent machines in the workplace? Will our standard of living decline along with our income? Or will we finally have more time for our friends, families, and hobbies thanks to a 3-day working week and an unconditional basic income? Will new professions arise, and if so, what will they be?

The fear of losing jobs to new technologies is as old as the first industrial revolution. Looms and steam engines dramatically changed the world of work just as the personal computer and the internet have done. In the shadow of the current debate surrounding robots and networked industry, something more has arisen. The "Prosumer". Prosumers consume what they produce themselves. What distinguishes them from individual world reformers is that they are globally networked via the internet, designs and plans for anything they choose are available to them online, and they have access to new, digital, robotic means of production such as 3D printing or laser sintering. All of these factors allow prosumers to sidestep traditional markets and to design, produce and distribute custom-made, smart products.

The end of a society based on the division of labour and the return to self-sufficiency is an interesting concept. How would you like to work in the future?

Michelle Sandford works for Microsoft. She is the Vice Chair of the Australian Computer Society in WA, a Tedx Speaker, a Tech Girl Superhero and one of MCV's 30 Most Influential Women in Games. You can follow Michelle on LinkedIn for her articles; on Twitter for events, interesting shares and occasional commentary in 140 characters, Facebook to see where she is presenting next, YouTube for Video's and Instagram for the life of a Microsoftie in photographs.