iRobot

I was in the airport when an AI robot custodian was roving around, sweeping the floor and accepting various bits of trash from nearby passengers.

The robot came close to me. We just locked eyes.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello, do you have any garbage for me?”

I smiled. “No.”

The robot buzzed away.

When I was a kid, artificial intelligence did not scare me. In kid-world, the concept of AI always carried a fun-loving tone. Robots were your friend.

There was Rosie from “The Jetsons.” She was a big, maternal robot. A lovable mechanical member of the Jetson family cooked, cleaned, and spoke with a Brooklyn accent. All her antennas (antennae?) flashed and beeped whenever she spoke.

There was the Environmental Control Robot on “Lost in Space,” an advanced computerized intelligence module that looked exactly like a guy wearing a trashcan. The robot’s role was unclear. But he was a valued member of the Robinson crew, exhibiting a wide range of human characteristics such as laughter, sadness, as well as singing and playing the guitar, and answering each question helpfully with, “That does not compute.”

So I didn’t know I was supposed to be afraid of AI until this year when someone asked a chatbot to write something in the style of Sean Dietrich.

Now, my first thought was: The chatbot is going to reply, “In the style of WHO?”

Namely, because in the literary world, nobody knows who I am. If the publishing world were like high school, I would not be one of the “cool kid” authors. I’d be the author who is in detention every weekend dutifully trying to break his record for most spit balls stuck to the chalkboard.

Even so, the chatbot actually imitated one of my essays. Although, you could tell it wasn’t my work inasmuch as the gramer wuz flahless.

Still, even I had to admit, what the computer wrote was actually PRETTY GOOD. And it “sounded” like me.

Cue “Twilight Zone” theme.

In the airport, I started noticing AI all over the place. Not just AI custodial sweepers, but AI kiosks, food delivery robots, AI customer service representatives, and even an artificially intelligent toilet flushing mechanism.

I was thinking about all this when I noticed a few kids next to me in the airline waiting area. They were maybe 6 and 7 years old. They were playing with iPads. On the screens were their AI “buddies.”

I asked the parents about these AI companions.

The mother said, “It started off as a great thing. It was like having someone to entertain my daughters.”

I was intrigued.

“But now,” she went on, “my kids, especially my youngest, aren’t interested in making human friends at school.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She withdraws from people. I wish we would’ve never introduced those iPads. My youngest is starting to prefer AI to human beings. We’ve tried taking it away from her, but she just shuts down.”

“Shuts down?”

“She won’t talk, won’t eat, won’t do anything. It’s like her best friend has died.

“We finally had to get a therapist. They said we have to introduce this change slowly, because our daughter is too young to understand. To her AI is not a machine, it’s her best friend. They talk all day, they tell secrets to each other, they say ‘I love you.’”

The mother was emotional as she spoke words I’ll never forget.

“I think it’s finally hitting me, this generation of kids is going to grow up with AI as their best friend. And it really scares me.”

Danger, Will Robinson.

Danger.