I think the “takeover” began about 30 years ago when a call would be made to some business and instead of talking to a person, you were given the option of pressing a certain button for a desired outcome. There were the automatic car washes and sci-fi stories about robots taking over. Blame it on the Jetsons. The appeal has been having machines save us work, and if you are building corporate profits, “why pay a person when a machine can do it cheaper”?
I am not trying to claim some moral high ground, heck—I love the connivence of pushing a button and getting instant this or that. I remember the first time I saw an advertisement for a RoboVac. The little guy sneaks around your house quietly picking of lint and popcorn. I have never succumbed to the temptation to have some sneaky little electronic housekeeper buzzing around while I slept. What happened to me yesterday reinforced my resolve.
MK and I went to King Soopers yesterday evening. It’s a great time to be in a store that is just slightly smaller than the Coliseum. We have our route as we go counter clockwise, starting at produce and circling past the “vegan section” at the back, where we find nondairy creamer, fake eggs, and the like. As we were coming around the back side of the store I saw something like a miniature Zamboni cleaning the floors. There was no one sitting where the operator belonged. I soon realized I was watching the giant version of a RoboVac. Sure enough, it would work its way down the coolers, leaving a nice polished swath behind it.
We were on the final leg of our shopping excursion where I was looking for our favorite coffee creamers. I turned back to my right to move one case over and there I came face to face with “man vs. machine”. It was headed right at me. I stood my ground—I was not about to let some “labor saving device” keep me from my vanilla oat milk delight. Mr. Machine stopped about two feet from me. I took my right hand and pointed at it and said “Back UP, Back UP… I said back up”. By this time MK’s joyful laugh was distracting my Mano e’ Machino moment. Finally, after about thirty seconds, my nemesis backed up and went around me. It headed right back along the coolers and left a perfect trail of shiny floor except in the six foot space of our “incident”.
Score: Mark 1, Robot 0.
I fear that when the word gets out in machine world, they will either hunt me down or hand me over to the latest Artificial Intelligence nightmare. It was a small victory for me, sort of like how I feel after waiting 20 minutes to speak to a real person at the airline reservation hotline.
Right now I see R2 D2 as just another culprit.
Onward and Upward,
Mark
Lyfting Me Up 