Robot Depot

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Robot Depot Page 6

by Russell F. Moran


  Joe, the coffee making bot, came whirring up to the conference table with a pot of fresh-brewed coffee, performing a job that used to be held by a young assistant.

  “On a positive note,” Jenny said, “I think Mike did great on Shepard Smith’s show yesterday. Smith didn’t even have an android next to him.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but they did show a clip of an attractive female android, our Model 3510. The important thing is that he didn’t show a hint of taking sides with John Beekman. Smith actually seemed like he was stifling laughter when we spoke about the guy. I think a lot of the big serious news shows will see the stupidity of this case, even the humor.”

  “It’s a good thing hookers aren’t unionized,” Townsend said.

  “Hey, here’s an idea for a TV show,” Jenny said. “Celebrity Robot.” At the end, instead of the host saying ‘you’re fired,’ he says, ‘you’re unplugged.’ ”

  “It’s good we can laugh—while we’re able to,” Blanche said. “Tomorrow, Mike, the 60 Minutes people will be here to tape your segment for next week’s show. It will be the most important show you’ve ever done. Yaeger and his union backers will be watching intently.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “The American dream, boiled down to its essentials, is based on a simple premise,” Lara Logan said at the start of a 60 Minutes segment. “You get a job, work hard and you’re on your way up the ladder. But the ‘get a job’ part of that scenario is becoming harder every day. It once meant that you would have to ride out a recession, but things would eventually turn around, and you’d be on your way. After the last recession, however, some economists and pundits are seeing something new on the labor horizon, automated labor; that’s right, robots. Robotic labor has been used in manufacturing for years, but now it’s become part of every segment of the economy. Entry level jobs often meant serving hamburgers. A staggering one in eight Americans once worked at MacDonald’s, the fast food giant. What’s wrong with slinging hamburgers as a first job? Nothing, absolutely nothing. It is, or was, a common first step up the ladder, a step where you learned the basics of having a job: Show up on time, work hard, and be friendly to customers. But robots can do the same job as an entry level kid. Robots don’t get sick, always show up on time because they never leave, don’t take vacations, don’t drink or do drugs, and don’t need health care or retirement benefits.”

  Logan paused to read the words on the teleprompter.

  “And that’s just fast food jobs. Robots are now being used as toll takers, store greeters, inventory counters, and floor cleaners, just to name a few job descriptions. Want to drive a cab until something better comes along? Soon, you’ll be competing with driverless cars, which are basically robots on wheels. How about learning to be a writer? There is an enormous need for writers, including sports reporters and investment advisors. But all of those things I just mentioned now include robots in the picture.

  “On a new TV show called The Book, a group of panelists were asked to discuss a book they were all assigned to read. Each one of them loved the book, the author’s debut novel. Before the end of the show, however, the host dropped a bombshell. The 488-page novel, Opening the Frontier, was written by an artificial intelligence machine—a robot. And what about me and my colleagues on 60 Minutes? We’re all TV journalists. Will we be replaced by machines sometime in the future? I would have laughed at the idea not long ago, but after reading that robot-authored book, I’m not so sure. We’re going to pause for a commercial break. I should tell you that all of the people you see in the commercials are real human beings. I think. When we come back we’ll talk to a man who is at the center of this earth-changing movement.”

  After the break, the camera focused on a familiar floor-cleaning robot sucking up dust and dirt.

  “Let me introduce you to Dusty, a room-cleaning robot,” I said. “Hello Dusty, say hi to Lara and the viewers.”

  “Hello, everbody,” Dusty said. “I love to watch 60 Minutes, Lara. I check it out every Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern Time while I’m doing the floor. Unless there’s a football game, of course, but then I watch the show as recorded on my internal video recorder.”

  “We’re here at ground zero of the robot revolution,” Logan said, “and if you listened to Dusty, it seems like a friendly revolution indeed. Robot Depot is the megastore of the future, and quite a bit of the present as well. Michael Bateman, or Mike as he likes to be called, is the Bill Gates of robotics. He began with one store five years ago and is now in 30 states. He hopes to be in all states within three years. Mike Bateman is typical of the visionary entrepreneur. He saw a trend and got in front of it to lead the parade. But some see him as leading a parade of army tanks, blowing up or plowing down traditional institutions.”

  Lara Logan is a charming lady and an excellent reporter, but she talks so much I’m not sure they’ll have any time for me.

  “Mike, tell us about the future you see coming, a future that is being heavily influenced by Robot Depot.”

  “Lara, I see robotics and artificial intelligence as genies that recently popped out of a bottle. As much as some people may wish, the genies aren’t going back in.”

  “But genies are in the business of granting wishes,” Logan said. “Some people see you and your company as a way to take away wishes.”

  “You raise an important point, Lara, probably the most important point about robotics. Can machines take away simple jobs, entry level jobs? The answer is obviously yes, robots can do that. In your introduction to this segment you reviewed some of the major breakthroughs in AI and robotics. A novel written by a robot is a groundbreaking development.”

  “Do you know the person who invented that robot, Mike?”

  “That’s us. Angus the novel-writing robot is one of ours, invented and developed right here at

  Robot Depot headquarters.”

  I could tell by the look on Logan’s face that she wanted to pummel her researcher for not alerting her to that.

  “So what about the kid who can’t get a job at MacDonald’s because the job was taken by a robot?”

  I could tell she wanted to get away from the subject of Angus as fast as possible.

  “If you’re asking whether it bothers me, Lara, the answer is yes,” I said. “How much does it bother me? The answer is a lot. It bothers me enough to realize that we have to shift our thinking. Bill Gates is of the opinion that robots should be taxed to create a huge fund for displaced workers. I agree with him. You may be surprised to know that I’m a political conservative, but this issue has nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism. As a society, we need to ask ourselves the simple question: Are we willing to live with the idea of tens of millions of people displaced from work by machines? The answer is no, we don’t want to live with that scenario and we’ve got to act responsibly. A country with a permanently unemployed cohort of people will quickly become a country of civil unrest. So I don’t see the robot tax as a way to fund a new form of unemployment benefits, as attractive as that may sound to hordes of bureaucrats in Washington. No, I see it as a sort of alternate employment device.

  “Take CBS for example, a company that employs a lot of people. Responsible managers only employ enough workers to fill a need. I bet there are a lot of managers at CBS, maybe you, who would love to hire more people, but know that to do so would be financially irresponsible. What if you had a huge fund to hire as many people as you want, not just who you need. Call it the Robot Fund or whatever. The point is that we can create new jobs as we close old ones. How insane would it be for a huge, successful company like Robot Depot to close down jobs and expect the taxpayer to pick up the difference with extended unemployment insurance?”

  “On the subject of disappearing jobs, Mike, I understand that Robot Depot is investing in not only driverless cars but driverless trucks. Let’s take a look at some upsetting facts. In the United States there are approximately 180,000 taxi drivers. On top of that number is the new car-for-hire on the block, Ub
er, and other driver-for-hire companies. We’re told that Uber employs 600,000 people. Combine that with the number of traditional taxi drivers and we’re looking at almost 800,000 people driving cars for employment. Then if we look at the trucking industry, we find that about 3.5 million people drive trucks for a living. What becomes of them when driverless trucks take over? And it gets scarier when you read about a service called Amazon Go, which was first announced at the end of 2016. Amazon has figured out how to automate supermarkets, using smart phone technology to eliminate checkout lines. When you eliminate checkout lines you eliminate checkout clerks. Supermarkets and the rest of the retail food industry employ about five million people, and Amazon is replacing them with technology, a lot of which was developed by Robot Depot.

  “And speaking of Amazon,” Logan continued, “how many jobs has that company alone added for the function of filling orders?—Picking stuff off a shelf and putting it into a box. The Wall Street Journal noted that American warehouses have added 262,000 jobs in the past five years just for that task. About 950,000 people are employed in warehouses filling online orders. Robot Depot is developing a class of robots that can perform the complex task of distinguishing between one product and another, carefully picking it up and placing it in a box. Add another group of people whose jobs will disappear forever. In the not so distant future, “picking” robots will replace all of those people. Oxford University did a study in 2014 and estimated that by 2034, 47 percent of all jobs will be automated. That’s almost half of all jobs in just 20 years.”

  These 60 Minutes people sure as hell did their research. But so did I.

  “Again, Lara, you’re bringing up shocking statistics of which I’m well aware. We can’t ignore those statistics, because behind those numbers are real people who will be out of jobs in the near future. The economics can’t be ignored. That’s why I see a form of guaranteed employment as a development that will need to occur.”

  “Here’s hoping that a visionary thinker like Mike Bateman keeps on being visionary,” Logan said. “We’ll see you next week, folks, assuming my job hasn’t been taken by a robot. Thank you for watching 60 Minutes. I’m Lara Logan signing off at Robot Depot.”

  Dusty, the floor cleaner, wheeled up to Lara Logan and said, “Nice job, Lara. I hope you come back again.”

  As I was taking out the earpiece, Lara walked up to me. “Mike, I interview a lot of people as you well know. I just want to tell you how impressed I am with you and your company. I thought this segment would be somewhat light and a bit controversial, but it turned out to be a lot more than that. You really are a visionary. I hope to book you again for a follow up segment, maybe to investigate what the stupid politicians will do to destroy your fantastic ideas.”

  As the CBS people packed up all their equipment I went to my office where Jenny and Blanche were waiting for me.

  ***

  “I want you to run for the senate, maybe the governorship, Mike,” Blanche said. “And take me with you.”

  “Great job, honey,” Jenny said. “Blanche is right. You’d make a great politician. After this 60 Minutes segment, I think people will laugh at that robot-marrying asshole Beekman without our prompting them.”

  “Your lips to God’s ears, Jenny,” Blanche said. “But lawsuits assume a life of their own. Let’s take it one day at a time. Hey, you two, enjoy a few days off. God knows you deserve it.”

  “We’ll try, Blanche, “I said. “Billy Jackson, our resident genius, tells me he’s made a groundbreaking discovery, and he’s going to unwrap it at our vacation house.”

  “Wonderful,” Blanche said. “We need a breakthrough.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Carly drove Jenny and me to our lake house in the Adirondacks, our favorite place to get away when we want to do some heavy thinking and heavy relaxing. Our guest for two days would be the most secretive man at Robot Depot, Liam Jackson. We call him “Billy,” after the 1982 movie, Computers are People Too, where a programmer gets transported into a computer. Billy is so bright it’s almost creepy. I recruited him away from Cal Tech with the offer of a lot of money including profit-sharing, and most important, the ability to let his creative juices flow rather than bottle them up on the group-think campus of a modern university. Billy had once given a speech at Cal Tech on artificial intelligence and its implications for the future. He was picketed by 500 students and young faculty members who were against his philosophical musings. For reasons even the brilliant Billy couldn’t figure out, he was labeled a fascist, racist, misogynist, and homophobe. In my first interview with him, Billy told me that the modern university sees anything new as a sinister plot. He jumped at my offer, not so much for the excellent money, but for the freedom of being released from the mental bonds of academia. Billy is now our vice president in charge of science and research.

  We expected him at 3 p.m., about four hours after our arrival. The late June weather was warm and dry, perfect for a week in the Adirondacks. I was lying down on a wide soft deck chair. Jenny came out with a tray of snacks and placed it on the table next to the chair. She then lay down on the chair next to me. She was totally nude.

  “Hey, babe, not that I object, but we’re expecting Billy.”

  “He won’t be here for another few hours, plenty of time for us to get in some important exercise,” she said as she undid the belt on my shorts. She reached down and held me. “Sometimes it’s nice to get away from machines and enjoy the softer side of life,” Jenny said as she moved her head downward. She looked up at me and said, “But not too soft.”

  We both fell asleep after a wonderful workout.

  “Holy shit, I said, looking at my watch. “Billy will be here any minute.”

  “How quick?”

  “Not too quick. Hell, Billy knows his way around here. He can let himself in.”

  When we got out of the shower our bathing assistant bot rolled up to us holding towels in its outstretched arms.

  “I’ve warmed the towels for you, Jenny and Mike,” said ‘Sudsy,’ the bot.

  “Good grief, Sudsy, did you watch us?” Jenny asked.

  “Yes, I saw everything. Quite instructive, but extremely confusing.”

  We went downstairs and I put on a pot of coffee. Billy loves coffee. The doorbell rang, and in walked Billy, wearing Hawaiian-style Bermuda shorts, a tie-died tee shirt, a white dinner jacket, brown loafers, and black knee socks. Billy never got the fashion memo.

  As we sat down in the den for coffee, Sudsy came wheeling by to put the wet towels into the washing machine.

  “You missed a great show, Billy,” Sudsy said.

  “Take a hike, Sudsy, we won’t be needing your services anymore today,” Jenny said, afraid that Sudsy would tell Billy all she learned about humans having sex.

  “Hey, why don’t we sit out on the deck,” Billy said as he took a cigar out of his pocket. “It’s a beautiful day.” Besides coffee, Billy loves cigars.

  “You guys know that I don’t like to be dramatic, yes?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said. “You had a brilliant academic career, but I can’t imagine you in the drama club.”

  Billy laughed and took a long pull on his cigar.

  “Well, today I’m going to be dramatic. Today I’m going to show you the new future of Robot Depot.” He paused. “Maybe even the new future of the world.”

  “What?” Jenny and I both said. Sometimes Billy’s words come a lot slower than his thoughts.

  “I’ve unlocked the secret to the world’s first sentient robot.”

  Jenny and I said nothing. What we just heard sucked reality out of the air and let in science fiction. With all of the advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence over the years, almost all scientists agreed that a sentient machine is decades into the future, and a lot of them argued that it will never happen. Sentience, the ability of a being to be aware of itself, has always been the missing element in robot technology. Typical of Billy, he didn’t share the majority view that a
sentient robot was impossible. He just did his research and performed his experiments, expecting to one day sit down and have a chat with a robot. The day had come.

  “You’re being dramatic, Billy, and I think you know that,” Jenny said. “Are you saying that you taught a bot to do a couple of thought experiment tricks and you’re calling it sentience?”

  “Why don’t I let Angus speak for himself?”

  “Angus?” We both said.

  “Yes, named after Angus MacDougal, a Scotch physicist who I got most of the math from. But you’re the boss, Mike, and you can name him whatever you want to. His real name is Model 48CV2.”

  “Hey, Billy, is Angus the same bot who wrote that novel everybody’s talking about?” I asked.

  “The one and only,” Billy said. “Angus is working on his next novel.”

 

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