<b>Bharat Bambawale:</b> A robot in the marketing department

The next marketing superman could be a string of code

Science fiction writers have long predicted the arrival of human alternates. Ranging from mostly human to the fully mechanical, with every conceivable permutation in between, the face-off between man and machine has fascinated us for centuries. Frankenstein, Robocop, The Terminator excite and frighten us. Isaac Asimov relieved our anxieties about human-harming robots with his Three Laws of Robotics. Truth is we want our human alternates strong and clever but obedient and benign.

The human alternate has found use in repetitive business roles humans don’t want or are likely to make errors in. They manufacture cars, make medicines, plant and harvest