A Robotic Society

The TV show the Jetsons showed scenes of a futuristic world; one dominated by hovercrafts, fancy space suits, and robots. While hovercrafts and fancy space suits have yet to catch on, robots are becoming increasingly important in our society as a whole. This brings to question, what defines a robot? Is it an intricate assembly of metal gears and rods put together, or the programming that allows those pieces to fulfill their purpose? If the answer is the latter, then by definition, our society is dominated by robots. Robots that sleep, eat, work, have “meaningful” conversations with other robots in their specific code, then wake up the next day and do it all over again, just as they are programmed. Just think about daily life. How many times are the words “hey, what’s up?” immediately followed by “what’s up?”, and how many times are our daily interactions about anything besides what is currently going on in someones life, about something other then how their classes are going, about something of sustenance? We, as humans, are programmed to think a certain way, interact with each other in a certain way, and consume in a certain way. And whenever a person goes against this program set forth in our society, we medicate them, label them, and do everything we can to fix their coding, all in hopes of them becoming “normal” again. Individualism is something we claim is something so important in our culture, but we berate people for being just that. There is a significant need for change in our own programming, but this change needs to happen within oneself, not coded by someone else.

Keep an open mind. -CS

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