The Emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
By W. F. Twyman, Jr.
Are you ready for your humanoid robot?
Our living and breathing Claudia has been with us since around 2013. We love Claudia like a member of the family. She knows our secrets better than any other non- family member. If our children engaged in indiscretions downstairs as teenagers, Claudia knew before us parents upstairs. It is amazing the things one can discover in a teenager’s trashcan or under the mattress/sigh or hidden on the hallway bookshelf. Claudia is a house cleaner with a detailed memory of dust behind the mantle, of where the dishes should go, of our habits as a family. It is also true that Claudia on occasion has missed work due to Covid and her son’s illness out-of-state. She has other families on her client listing, so we are just one of many cleaning stops in her week and month. Claudia is not available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for us.
Suppose my wife and I decided to retain NEO, the butler robot? What would we gain and what would we lose? Claudia is a fellow human. She grins and smiles and engages in small talk. We have intimate household history with Claudia. We share humanity with Claudia. NEO, however, could be there all the time, around the clock. NEO would never catch a cold or the flu. NEO’s child would never have a health emergency. Review the You Tube video above and imagine NEO in our Twyman household. Imagine telling NEO “Our Bright and Morning Star” is coming to visit in two months. Can you clean the house so that our visitor will love the condition of her room, the museum-like conditions of the whole downstairs, and that her favorite home-cooked meals are prepared for her every night during her stay?
Hmmn. Those are directions we would never give Claudia. But NEO, our home butler robot? Am I looking into the mirror of the future as I view NEO in the Ted Talk video? Will my wife and I gain back time with NEO in the home? These are questions we may all answer in our lives between now and 2030.