Jashan Takhar Personal Essay 6

What kind of robot would you like? 

 

At this point in time, this question doesn't hold too much value for me, assuming that the question is talking about robots in the sense of a companion powered by artificial intelligence. This is mostly because I know that if I got any of the existing robots introduced by different tech companies regularly, then sure, it would be interesting at first, but I'm sure the novelty would wear off eventually. None of them do much that would be particularly life-changing for me on a day-to-day basis. On top of that, I don't think I would appreciate going to sleep every day with the last thing I see being a humanoid face perched silently in the corner of my room.

    I guess I'm sorry for my boring answer. However, if I was asked this question seven years ago, I would have had a significantly different response. In fact, I'll call in my nine-year-old self to record his reaction.

   

What kind of robot would I like? What kind of robot would I like?! That is, like, a really impossible question. There's no way I can answer that without taking like, a gazillion years. I'm pretty sure that robots are the best thing that people ever made. Because they are so cool. And stuff. Like, they are so cool that I'm pretty sure they'll replace everyone's jobs in five years or something. When I get a robot, it's gotta be one that: 

1. Does my homework 
2. Does my chores
3. Brushes my teeth 
4. Lets me play on the Wii all day

   

    In a sense, in my childhood, robots were all around me. Whether it be movies, robot-themed birthday parties, or children's books about robots, the thought of owning a robot one day always popped up occasionally. However, two TV shows in particular, namely Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and The Fairly Odd Parents, really solidified my interest in robots. In Jimmy Neutron, the lead character, Jimmy, designs all sorts of robots that assist him in his daily routine, from choosing his clothes, to brushing his teeth, to cutting his hair. He even has a robotic dog as a companion. In The Fairly Odd Parents, the lead, Timmy Turner, travels to the future in one episode where school only took 5 seconds to finish, as he just had to wear an electronic helmet that would instantly transfer all of the knowledge he would need to learn for that day to his brain. He then went home to a robotic servant who did all of his chores, so he was free to play video games all day. 

    Because of these stories, I found myself daydreaming on a weekly basis about what it would be like to have a robot do absolutely everything for me, even menial tasks like getting up to get the TV remote. My YouTube history was filled with different videos about robots. Eventually, I did come across the dangers of artificial intelligence, but for some reason, I didn't care too much about it. I was blinded by my love for robots. 

    At one point, I mourned having to do pretty much anything, always thinking that if I had a robot, I wouldn't even have to do this stupid thing. Though, I usually had to get over this quickly because it was easier to just clean up over attempting to summon a robot in front of me. 

    Once I realized that I probably wasn't going to get my own Iron Giant, I shifted my attention to "robotic" toys. One advertisement that popped up particularly frequently for me was WowWee's MiP, which could be controlled by hand gestures, play minigames, and even carry around small objects on its mini-tray. I begged and begged for it and eventually got one for my birthday. 

    I played a ton with it. I genuinely thought that it understood me when I talked to it. Unfortunately, it ran out of battery every two days, and I was burning through our stock of AAs fast. Eventually, my parents told me to stop playing with it so much, because we didn't even have enough batteries for the flashlight.

    Discouraged, I started to limit my time with my MiP in person and started surfing the web about it to make up for the lost time instead. That was when I came across an article about the inner workings of MiP. I read that it wasn't a sentient being, but it was just a toy with Bluetooth compatibility. At the time, that felt like the biggest betrayal of my life. It was like discovering that Santa isn't real for the first time, but much worse. After that, I still sporadically played with my MiP, but with nowhere the same amount of eagerness as before. Ultimately, my interest in "robots" faded away in time until I stopped caring about them at all. That leads me to my current state of indifference. I guess what I would take away from this is to just enjoy your experiences while you're still living through them, just up until the point where something comes in to tarnish them.