I have been accused of living under a rock on more than one occasion; it’s due more to my personality and preferences than my lack of staying informed. The more news I see of late, the more I want a rock to crawl under.
Normally I couldn’t care less about airlines, except as an indicator of the economy. I don’t travel – even if I had time to do so, somebody has to feed the animals – so most of what goes on in the jetsetting world is outside my interest.
It’s not that I am afraid of flying; I love flying in small planes. I have no particular desire to be crammed into a large aluminum can for several hours while some folks get drunk, some abuse the staff handing out peanuts three at a time, and somewhere, somebody is sneezing. Plus, anyplace I can’t carry a pocketknife is a place I have no reason to visit.
That flightophobia wasn’t helped by the story about a robot that caused a flight delay.
Bebop is a 70 pound “humanoid” robot. The robot’s owners use it in promotional events. Due to Bebop’s battery pack and other equipment, Southwest decided that Bebop was too heavy to be checked with the regular luggage. Instead, Elite Event Robotics (Bebop’s owner? Employer? Parents?) bought the bot a ticket.
Bebop was apparently a model of good behavior in the TSA line, and even put on a little dance show for the other passengers. Social media filled with clips of Bebop dancing and doing robot stuff. The videos are cute, in a strange scifi way.
But there turned out to be a problem.
Bebop uses rechargeable lithium batteries, which have a tendency to malfunction and cause major problems on aircraft. The flight was extensively delayed while the batteries were yanked out.
Just imagine some little kid flying to Grandma’s house watching a friendly robot being disemboweled by flight attendants.
The owner said they’ve since come up with ways to reduce Bebop’s weight, so the bot can travel in the luggage compartment.
There was another video recently showing how a Chinese robot went berserk during some kind of a dance program. Thankfully no one was hurt, but the robot reminded me of the wasted days of my youth when a friend had tied one on and insisted not only that he could dance, but that a certain young lady on the other side of the room would dance with him and make him forget about his ex-wife. Sadly, there weren’t cellphones in those days, because his video would have been worth millions online.
Another robot, this one in a foot race against humans, failed to negotiate a trip hazard and broke into pieces on impact. I felt its pain. Yet another apparently had stage fright and pitched a hissy fit when its developers raised the curtain at its debut.
I have written before about my concerns about robots. I admit it might be handy to have a Big Dog from Boston Dynamics to toddle alongside me hauling fence supplies or on the trapline on the weekends, but I’ve always felt sorry for the bots made by those folks.
Many of their engineers must have been beaten up on the playground as kids. Considering the ways they abuse those poor creations, I think they all have issues left over from being harassed by bullies in grade school.
I kind of feel sorry for the Big Dogs and their counterparts. All they seem to “want” is to work, which is an admirable trait often forgotten in today’s world. I’d like to think Miss Rhonda and I would treat a Big Dog as we do a rescued animal, gaining its trust then gradually bonding.
Of course, with my luck, it would raid the cat food bucket, chase chickens, steal the blankets at night and dump trashcans like our real dogs.
One of the big robot engineers recently made headlines when he admitted that robots, like artificial intelligence, can make mistakes. Considering they were designed and built by humans, errors are going to happen. I understand that.
I just don’t want to be on the receiving end when a ticked-off robot comes to work after having a fight with his digital wife or some line of code gives him a short circuit headache or a Taylor Swift song gets stuck on a loop in his digital brain. Or maybe he gets into some bad hydraulic fluid while partying with his android friends. And never mind what feeding those things must do to the electric bill.
A companion robot being developed overseas has a built-in music player as well as lifelike skin, a human voice and expressions. One can program it to have conversations. They expect it to be able to display and have emotions in a few years. Versions are already being used in hotels, as desk clerks and customers service people — err, representatives. I trust I am not alone in hoping its creator someday gets a girlfriend and a life.
Elon Musk, whom I respect and admire, expects robots to be a constant part of everyday life in the very near future. Robots that handle household chores and do other things already exist; never mind all the automation in factories involves things that are technically robots.
Those who wax philosophical about robotics point to the great author, Isaac Azimov. In one of his writings, he created the Three Laws for Robots, to wit: a robot may never injure or allow a human to be injured; robots must obey every order from a human as long as it doesn’t conflict with the First Law; and a robot must protect its own existence except where that would conflict with the First or Second laws. Seems pretty easy to program, at least on paper.
But the way things usually turn out, I’d be more concerned that each and every one would suddenly turn into a Terminator.
If they didn’t turn on the human race when they became self-aware, some liberal somewhere would decide robots needed the right to vote. Pretty soon thereafter we would have robots on welfare, with free health care and housing, and said robots would develop gender identity problems.
While I have no plans to travel anywhere by plane anytime soon, I think it wouldn’t be so bad to have Bebop in the next seat. I have no idea if Bebop would want to sit by the aisle or the window, or if Bebop is a good conversationalist. If Bebop was an unpleasant companion, I’d find a way to turn the bot off.
But I think I’m going to try to avoid adding a robot to our household anytime soon. The power bill is already sky high and we have enough mouths to feed. Plus there are already enough broken-down machines in my yard without adding one that might short-circuit and put Taylor Swift on repeat.
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