Robots Are Our Friends

By Anthony Pilloud
Contributing Writer

The creation of a working, functional, and self-sufficient artificial intelligence is a necessary eventuality. The evidence is before us, the results cannot be ignored. It is the right time for us to step up our game and admit that we, as human beings, are going to face a day when we will be forced to interact with something utterly foreign to us, and that we are not prepared. It is not our technology that is not ready for the AI Arrival, but ourselves, our collective cultural mindset and unspoken prejudice. It is the fundamental mindset on “robots” that must be changed.

To be frank, robots are not considered with the highest esteem. If they are portrayed as human or in the least intelligent, then our initial impression is to exclaim “science fiction” at the top of our lungs. Any robot that we know to exist exists simply as a tool, a complex wrench, or we eye warily with suspicion should they begin to look too much like us.
 
We seem to overlook the notion that we are already forming complex and intimate relationships with the technology around us. Cell phones and laptops are now clearly fashion statements, continuing the unconscious notion of using clothes or tools as extensions of ourselves; in fact “your cell phone” and “your laptop” are more unanimously personal to your being than your clothes are now. Having a cell phone that is not exclusively “yours” or not having one at all is a cultural taboo.
 
It is this surprisingly personal experience we share with our technology that we seldom take the time to recognize. Despite sharing some of our deepest personal secrets with and trusting it with that information, we still view them as tools, and not extensions of ourselves. Your cell phone stores every text conversation and voicemail that you have not discarded; no matter how personal it is, we feel safe knowing that it knows. Your computer is, presumably, the only other one who knows all your passwords. In fact, mine is better at remembering them then I am. Which one of your human friends knows what porn you like, remembers what porn you like and often correctly suggests what porn you might like?
 
Clearly, the relationship you have with your technology is fundamentally different from the relationship you have with other human beings. But that should not suggest that it is not intimate, or in the least important. It is this fundamental difference that we fail to see clearly. A laptop is still nothing more than plastic and wires in our eyes. We fail to see the reflection in the screen; we fail to understand that it is completely possible to have an intimate relationship in a manner that is not wholly human. To suggest otherwise is outright prejudice; something can be human even if it is not human, even if all we have to go off of is behaviorism. In fact, especially then.
 
The time is coming quickly, I think. The robot apocalypse is nigh, so repent! It is imperative that we, as culture of human being, find a way to be compassionate enough of one another that we can accept something ultimately alien into our ranks. Pick your Roomba off the floor, and take him for a walk.

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