Meet our new robot, Cedar.
He’s like a Roomba but $200 cheaper.
This robot is rather simple in design really. He just dusts the floor, and our floors are a bit of a brutal chore for him, but he does his job as best as he can rather well, bouncing around the house and under the furniture.
My 4-year-old son was immediately taken with this robot. The dogs were terrified or annoyed, I couldn’t quite tell.
My son picked Cedar up in wonder and curiosity, he followed him around the house, and he was rather worried when Cedar silently stopped when he encountered an object that he could not glide over or bounce around.
And this is what struck me about my kid’s immediate fascination with the robot. My son innately felt connected to this simple, round (mostly) autonomous robot creation. And when my husband picked him up to check out Cedar’s progress (the amount of dirt and dust collected), Brodie shrieked in a most protective way, “Don’t take it apart, Daddy!”
My son has bonded with the robot.
He instinctively seems to care about it, empathize with it even. And this took place in only a matter of minutes.
It made me think of this movie from my ’80s childhood.
“Johnny #5 is alive!”
Don’t hurt the robot!
I couldn’t help thinking that in the not so distant future, there will probably be many more of these robots in our homes, doing chores diligently without supervision, needing only an occasional charge or part replacement, but they will probably, almost certainly, get our love and appreciation, if not affection, whether they need it or want it or not.
For some reason, it seems like it is programed in us to relate somehow to these animated non-human objects, or even in some cases inanimate ones, like stuffed animals.
I think about my cell phone and how well, I actually LOVE it. It is, after all, amazing. And most of us are in love with our smart phones, or if not in love with them, definitely obsessed.
So as a human race, we will be living with robots in our daily lives with more and more frequency. We may even merge with these machines according to the transhumanists.
Many people will naturally form relationships of sorts with robots. We will care for them, about them, and probably deeply appreciate them.
I guess the question is, as these machines evolve, will they be programmed to do the same for us, to connect with us, feel for us too?
Of course there’s the potential Terminator scenario in which the robots get pissed and take revenge.
But also there seems to be an innate possibility for some kind of deeper connection to take place, as in the scenario of the recent movie Interstellar in which robots are actually characters that the audience sympathizes with at some level, and one robot ends up sacrificing itself willingly and helps collect the data to save humanity. There’s also the new movie Big Hero 6 that has a very loveable robot that sacrifices itself for the main character in the film. It’s actually a pretty common theme in movies when the theme is not about how robots take over and try to destroy mankind.
I wish my new robot could do more, but I appreciate his efforts.
My husband suggested that we should go behind and sweep up after him, which to me kinda defeats the purpose of having a robot that sweeps. Then he speculated that at least the robot is pushing around trash from places we normally wouldn’t go, like under the bed, and at least he is collecting dust bunnies that can be easily disposed of after they are brought out into the light of day.
I can’t help wondering what kind of relationships we will develop with these machines and what other forgotten bits and pieces that they will help us discover, perhaps about the nature of creator and creation, and what it means to be humanly ourselves.
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