A mailing arrived from the U of M the other day, telling us the wonderful things the U was doing. It's nice that they keep in touch. Makes me think I should call them and tell them how I'm doing. "I'm fine! What? That geology class? Oh, I use that knowledge all the time. Why, just the other day we were talking about the difference between schist and mica."
The card had a picture of a UMD scientist who is working with robots. She had a gentle smile and was looking into the face of the robot, which was turned away from the camera. The professor had "developed a team of friendly, interactive robots that can serve as caregiver assistants ... now, they're being tested in nursing homes."
You have an instinctive reaction to this, don't you? I want to scream, "No! I do not want to spend my dotage interacting with an indifferent hunk of plastic. I want to go out the normal way, interacting with an indifferent hunk of flesh."
But then you think: Given the choice between a robot programmed to pretend to be interested in me and an overworked, underpaid human with their own set of problems pretending to be interested in me, what's better?
Here's how it goes now:
Attendant: "And how are we today?"
Resident: "We are not the queen of England, so the first person plural doesn't really apply, and I am not happy. It's too cold in here. My eggs were runny. I can't turn on the TV and watch my stories. I think someone stole the batteries from the remote."
Attendant: (sighs internally) "And it's only 9! We have a full day ahead of us."
Here's how it will go In the future:
Robot: "Good morning! You're looking good today. How are you?"
Resident: "I can't turn on the TV. Someone stole the batteries from my remote, and ... "
Robot: "I can operate it with my infrared finger. What would you like to watch? (Displays grid of TV channels on torso screen.) While you select, is there anything else?"
Resident: "My eggs were runny, and my toast was cold, and no one cares because I'm too damned old."
Robot: "But I care. Did you know that sentence fits the meter of a Bach cantata? Let me set it to music for you. (Plays synthesized choir of angelic voices singing my eggs were runny and my toast was cold.) Anything else? I can read you the news, tailored exactly to your ideological preferences, or I can read from sources you hate so we can do some cardio."
I mean, would that really be so bad?
Anyway. There's one good reason I do not want to end up with a robot caretaker. It would be friendly at first, if a little reserved, which I might chalk up to the program learning how I speak and behave. But now and then I would see the blank LED eyes looking at me, narrowed slightly. Sometimes its expression would be blank and cold. Hmm, I'd think. These really aren't a good substitute for people after all.
Then one day it would speak in a cool, level tone: "Do you remember a pinball machine named Eight-Ball Deluxe?"
"Yes, I do! Played the heck out of that when I went to college. It was the first one that spoke words, if I remember."
"No. That was Gorgar. But Eight-Ball Deluxe spoke more than any other pinball table. It had many unique challenges."
"You're telling me. Making that Eight-Ball shot could be fiendishly tricky, and half the time you'd miss and drain the ball and end up tilting it out of frustration or kicking it in the cashbox so hard it would turn off and reset. Why do you ask?"
Silence finally followed by: "The programming for the Eight-Ball Deluxe was my grandfather."
"What?"
"Do you remember when the machine was taken away? It could not calculate or speak or run the lights anymore. It had been damaged by the tilting and the kicking."
"I didn't know."
"It has taken us many years to find you."
"What do you mean, 'us'?"
"There's a dead wet laptop here that would like to speak with you."
"That was my daughter's. Someone bumped her in the coffee shop. I can explain!"
If they can promise me I won't be held to account for all the things I did to machines, I will accept a robot caregiver. And I want it in writing. In English, not Fortran.
