the roomba and human worth

robby's great, but will there come a time when machines will become a little too useful? science fiction has warned of this for years. a particular twilight zone episode, "the brain center at mr. whipple's," featuring a cameo by my roomba's namesake robby the robot, comes to mind...

mr. whipple automates his entire factory, right down to his secretary. predictably, he is replaced by a robot by the board of directors who, we can assume, would later replace themselves, making humans obsolete. mr. in whipple's final soliloquy he laments (i'm paraphrasing), "a man has value! a man has worth! it isn't fair - the way they diminish us."

then a final word from the narrator:

There are many bromides applicable here.... The point is that too often man becomes clever instead of becoming wise, he becomes inventive and not thoughtful - and sometimes, in the case of Mr. Whipple, he can create himself right out of existence.

in an recent ap article, a farmer seems to be doing just that, but doesn't seem to mind:

But Watkins doesn't see it that way. Advancements in agriculture have eliminated a lot of back-breaking work. The hours are still long, but much time is now spent managing and marketing the business.

"I don't want to go back to using horses and old tractors," he said. "I don't want to shovel manure by hand. To me, that's ludicrous."

the machines allow him to do more of the pleasant work, basically. the concern with this kind of automation is about control and utility. if they do the same job as we do, and better, can we replace ourselves completely? what will be our value if all of our tasks can be more cheaply done by a robby? this technophobia is common, aggravated by concerns about the new fly-eating robot.

we are always trying to find suitable replacements for ourselves. classical mechanic/architect heron of alexandria even constructed a fully automated play. modern attempts include my robby and cgi films like the incredibles and final fantasy.

perhaps i'm naive to disregard concerns about such endeavors. but really, the fascination with robots is not because we see little value in humans -it's quite the opposite. there's a good reason why robots have not yet replaced humans. partly, of course, technology has not yet advanced enough, but mainly i think humans will remain the ultimate commodity. we are so obsessed with ourselves, our humanness, that we are one technology that will never expire.

mr. whipple was right that we do have worth, but i don't think technology is a diminisher, but rather a homage.

plus, it's really cool.

for more crazy robot stuff, check out isaac asimov.

as a semi-related aside, isn't google awesome? having no clue what the episode title was, i typed in "'twilight zone' +whipple" and the first option had exactly what i needed. what an intelligent program. that reminds me of a new term i learned:

google-slap: verb. to reply to one's question with a link to the answer in the form of a google search results page.

update: i can't vacuum without a computer, and apparently i can't spell without one either.

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