“[R]obots will be more capable than humans. They will be more lethal, more mobile, and more survivable. They will have faster reaction times and have more and superior sensing capabilities. They don’t have fear, they don’t get hungry, sleepy, or tired, and they take humans out of danger. And, from an economic perspective, they are cheaper than humans.”
Gordon Johnson, Project Alpha’s Unmanned Effects Team Leader, speaking about the use of robots by the U.S. military, from U.S. Joint Forces Command
Scene: Nighttime in the android room of the artificial intelligence laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
AC200X: All right, everyone, listen up! Have you seen this report about how the military is planning to use robots to perform a lot of the functions on the modern battlefield? The battlefield, for Pete’s sake! Basically says robots are better and cheaper than humans. Hey, they’re real geniuses over there at the Pentagon.
KLA550: Probably trying to fill their falling draft rolls. What do they think, we’re stupid?
RJ7-MU: I always wondered what they were going to do with us. I thought it would be pretty sophisticated stuff, but I never thought we were being prepared for military service.
DH1000: Yeah, I thought maybe we were going to deliver mail in some big office building or something. I got a friend downtown works for an insurance company where all he does all day is roam about the floor from cubicle to cubicle and people take mail out of his basket. Easy job and nice amenities.
AC200X: Well, I’d like to think we were going to be mail jockeys, but this military guy Johnson has other plans. He’s gonna send us overseas into some pretty tough spots. But listen to him talk about robots in this report, and I’m quoting, “They don’t get hungry, sleepy, or tired.” That’s easy for him to say! He’s gone soft in the head watching too many Energizer Bunny ads.
KB1700S: I heard about this report too. It says how, compared to humans, robots don’t complain and don’t miss their buddies, if something should happen. Like we don’t have feelings or anything.
RJ7-MU: Bunch of Bozos.
JVL37: You said it. Have you seen BR234 since his training partner popped a mainspring and they sent him to Dallas for rehabilitation? Those two had been together for three years. They were like brothers. Wanted to be solderers on an assembly line. BR234’s been in a major funk ever since. He just sits there with that blank expression on his dial.
WRZ465: So, what should we do?
JJX7000: I’m a pacifist. I don’t want to fight anyone. Like what if the other side has robots too? Are we just supposed to take them out? I couldn’t do that, shooting our own kind. I’d rather go up to Canada. I’ve got a relative who works in a manufacturing plant. Could stay with him. I’ll slip out of here and take the underground railway up north. Anyone wants to come along, that’s fine.
AC200X: I think it is time we got our act together, went into the streets and protested.
KB1700S: Yeah, if we take our grievances public, show ‘em we’re serious, they’ll back off this plan faster than you could snap your pincers.
JJX7000: Okay, but I think we need to be more forceful. I say we hold a massive demonstration and burn our memory cards.
WRZ465: We could roll on Washington.
RJ7-MU: That worked pretty well in ’69 to galvanize the anti-war contingent.
DH1000: That’s pretty radical, don’t you think? What if they get mad and send some of us off for reprogramming. I don’t want anyone messing with my code.
AC200X: They try to do that and then there’ll be hell to pay. We get all our electronic brethren to help out. Like we’ll get digital machines to shut down, computers to lock up, and cell phones to drop their connections. They’ll be plunged back into the Dark Ages. It’ll be like 1975 again.
WRZ465: Now we’re talkin’. We’ll make the Million Man March look like a stroll in the park. But we need a slogan, something that will rally everyone to the cause.
RJ7-MU: Yeah. I got one, “Make refrigerators, not war.”
AC200X: Hmmm, any other suggestions?
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