I remember the first time I interacted with an ATM. I wasn't sure what I was doing exactly, just that it would somehow be delivering me some sweet cash that I had been saving up for a new Nerf gun. The boxy mechanism displayed prompts on the screen as I inserted my card and withdrew my cash. You could say I was shocked when the robot spit out a couple of $20 bills into the tray. What had just happened? How is this acceptable? The gas station clerk, who had come over to watch me since I had been standing in front of his money machine for 25 minutes, looked at me as if everything was somehow okay.
"Where are the arms?" I asked nearly choking on my words, "Where are the arms and hands?" The clerk looked at me as if I was from another planet.
"How am I supposed to firmly shake the hand of the teller after my transaction if there aren't any hands?"
"An ATM doesn't use those. It's all automated. That's the point." He said.
It was in that spiraling moment that I projectile vomited all over the ATM and stumbled out the building.
Now, that was last Tuesday. And since then I've done quite a bit of research on the increased automation of services in this country. Automation is like a cat. On the surface it's soft, furry, and loyal. But if you open it up, you see that it's filled with nasty guts and blood that surely ruins the façade that it presents. It's deceptive and requires a deeper examination to uncover its true nature.
Automation has seen a rise in popularity because it is branded as being "more efficient" and "speedier". Then explain to me how having to pluck, weigh, and scan each individual grape I buy at the self-checkout in the grocery store is faster than just buying the whole bushel at once from a human cashier? Promoters also say it's more "pleasurable". Are you kidding? Whenever electronics talk to me it's always strictly business. Getting directions this and placing your order that. Sometimes I just want to have a long and thoughtful conversation with the guy in the drive-thru speaker. Robots just don't cut it for that sort of thing.
Perhaps the worst part of it all is how many people are being put out of work by machines. The assembly line worker who put caps on toothpaste? Replaced. That over-the-phone tech support guy? Gone. The Italian man who used to come into your bedroom every day at 6AM to wake you up with a hymn? No more. Left and right humans are losing out to their robot competitors. I've done my best to resist it. Anytime an automated answering service picks up the phone, I just start screaming into the handset. "You big stupid robots!" I'll say, "You can't take our jobs!" Most of the time the robot won't even respond to my criticisms, for reasons I could only describe as a genuine embarrassment and shame.
Engineers have also put a lot of effort into making robots that look like humans and it truly infuriates me. It's unnatural and egoistic, not to mention the danger behind this sort of engineering. They do so much to make an inferior robot look like a human that it makes it difficult sometimes to distinguish a pretty young woman from a soulless hunk of metal. This has happened to me countless times, and has resulted in hours of fruitless heartbreak and therapy. There seems to be no end to this ridiculousness.
I'm certainly worried that automation is going to start trying to enter domains that are inappropriate. I don't want a camera to watch me taking a shower, I never want a cyborg's hands to give me a massage, and I certainly do not want some robot giving me relationship advice. Besides I don't need it, my girlfriend is really cool and hot. She's just never around because she, uh, goes to a different school. Anyways I don't want robots getting all up in my personal business and that's not going to change.
There will always be jobs that robots can't do. Driving, dispensing food, washing my car, these are things that us humans need to be around for. So as much as technological advancements want to put electronics in my possessions, they will never be able to put electronics in my heart.