Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Why Create Robots to Replace Ourselves?

By Meg Sonata
          When Harvey and his girlfriend Irma are not trashing the American 

landscape, the skies fill with unemployment alerts. Jobs in restaurants, 


warehouses, and delivery systems are supposedly about to go to robots. 


Uber has announced its thrilling conversion to robot drivers. Educators 


have been warned that they, too, will soon be replaced by mechanical 


substitutes. Sex robots have even popped onto the scene. Meanwhile, 


where are the protests over this scandalous development?
          In the college classroom, I once asked students to vote on these 

scenarios. If they were in the hospital, would they prefer to be comforted 


by a robot or a human being? If they were choosing supervision for their 


children, would they prefer their offspring's guardians to be mechanical 


or human? Unfailingly, their hands shot up to indicate their choice to keep 


society and civilization within the human domain. So why does the media 


now storm us with enthusiastic crusades for robots?
          Have unemployment lines suddenly become THE place to be? Is 

America recruiting H-1B visa immigrants to stand in unemployment lines 


along with their buddies, mechanically replaced American workers? If


mental health experts want new project, how about this? Can they 


discover why anyone would support his/her displacement in their own 


lives? No matter how cute a robot may be, it is not YOU! Isn't that point 


obvious? So how about campaigning—for such a delightful change
to keep life on this extraordinary planet obnoxiously and surprisingly 

human? 

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