Culture

Dystopia never arrives looking like dystopia

Somewhere in Warsaw, a humanoid robot recently chased a group of wild boars out of a neighborhood, escorted them politely into the woods, and then because subtlety is dead, waved goodbye.

Waved. Goodbye.

And the internet, naturally, let the video go viral thinking on part that it was a cute helpful robot. Aww.

I, on the other hand, immediately heard the distant, ominous theme of The Terminator and wondered if we’ve learned absolutely nothing except how to film our own origin story in HD.

Because here’s the thing.  Dystopia never arrives looking like dystopia. It shows up helpful. Efficient. Slightly charming. It waves at you after it removes the wild boars. Today it’s boars. Tomorrow it’s. Well. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but if a robot ever tells me to “just step this way,” I’m bringing snacks and suspicion.

And just as we’re collectively deciding that robot-animal-control is “adorable,” along comes the quiet little detail that Meta Platforms is reportedly working on an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg that can interact with employees on his behalf.

I’m sorry, what?

We are now cloning CEOs. Digitally. For efficiency. For scale. For vibes?

Somewhere, a middle manager is about to have their performance review conducted by Zuckerberg 2.0, who will nod thoughtfully, blink at perfectly timed intervals, and deliver feedback with the emotional range of a well-trained houseplant. And yet, and here’s where it gets complicated, there are whispers that this might actually be an improvement?

Which is how you know we’ve entered a very specific phase of late-stage humanity. When the robot version might be the warmer option.

This is the psychological paradox of our time. We fear the machines. We joke about Skynet. We reference apocalypse casually, like it’s a brunch topic. And yet we are also tired. Tired enough that if a polite, efficient, non-judgmental AI wants to handle a few interactions for us, we’re like, “Honestly? Go ahead. Wave at the boars. Take my calendar too.”

Because beneath the humor is something deeply human. We are overwhelmed by each other. By ego, by miscommunication, by the exhausting unpredictability of human moods. And so the idea of a calm, consistent, slightly uncanny substitute starts to feel less like horror and more like relief with Wi-Fi.

But let’s not get too comfortable.

Because the same instinct that makes us laugh at a robot waving goodbye is the one that slowly normalizes things we never thought we’d normalize. We adapt. We rationalize. We say, “Well, it’s just this one small thing.” And then suddenly, the small things have formed a very organized, highly efficient system that knows exactly how to escort us somewhere politely.

With a wave.

So yes, I laughed at the video. Of course I did. It’s absurd. It’s surreal. It’s a robot doing pest control with better manners than most people on the subway.

But I also paused.

Because somewhere between the boars being herded and the CEO being replicated, we are inching toward a world where the line between human and machine isn’t just blurred. It’s negotiable.

And I don’t know about you, but I’d like to at least notice when the robot starts waving goodbye.

Just in case one day it doesn’t mean goodbye at all.

3 replies »

  1. I can’t help pointing out that they ALWAYS give the robots the easy jobs.

    Because it takes the extreme flexibility and adaptability of even a not very speedy human to do the things we REALLY would rather the robots did, like make our beds with fresh sheets and load, run, and empty the dishwasher – and taking over the world is going to be of MAGNITUDE harder than laundry!

    They require so much input from humans who understand the world, that it’s almost not worth it.

    PLUS the robots must be manufactured, maintained, and error-proofed, because even their lower-level complexity has a LOT of room for problems – which they can’t solve.

    Skynet is a HUMAN story. All that happens when they start using robots as air traffic controllers is a slowdown of transportation, and probably more lost humans. There is no ‘Sully’ capability in a robot!

    Like

  2. Dystopia Indeed Dear Miriam

    Sounds a LOT like a Country
    With The Richest of Things

    And the Least Well Being Among
    Generation Alpha Our Future Indeed
    Particularly Females the Child Bearing Ones

    Yes recently assessed in the Bottom of the Pile
    of 136 Countries where Northern European Countries
    Also Failed at the Bottom of the List of the Hurting Ones

    Of Alpha Teenagers Particularly Females eventual yet only

    Potential Child-

    Bearers too

    So In Other
    Words We’ve
    Already arrived
    in Dystopia at Least
    the Alpha Generation of
    Our Future Generation now

    Oh By the way “Happy Superman Day”

    And It’s Not too Surprising that Humans got
    Tired of Waiting for “Superman” to Return so they created

    Humanoids of Steel to Chase Wild Boars Out of Neighborhoods
    In WarSaw Poland Yet even without Reproductive Organs there was

    No Delusions of ‘Demon Possessed Boars to Send off a Cliff to Their Destruction’

    In Fact this
    Humanoid
    of Steel Only
    Waved Goodbye

    Politely with “Shoo’s”

    Sending the Boars
    Only back to their
    Original Home the FoRest

    Indeed there were No Delusions
    Of ‘Children Making Fun of Important
    Bald Men and No God’s to Destroy Children
    With Hungry Bears Consuming Children This way’

    i suppose we could Use a Little bit of Polite Ego-Less
    Rationality These Humanoids of Steel Provide Yet of course

    The Danger with Machines and Other Tools Is they are Only as

    Good as

    Their

    Creators

    For It seems in Books
    Of Old We aRe Only as Good
    As Our Creator So Which Came

    First the Egg The Chicken or What
    Perhaps Only the Butt Hehe of the Joke

    Humans
    Already
    Seem to Be

    Yet true Perhaps
    in Flesh and Blood

    Ways We May Learn to Become
    More Human Now By the Machines
    We Create Polite without Ego Yep New

    Just Getting the Job of Machine Life Done

    Like Circling around the Moon Just Be Cause Machines Do

    SMiLes Dear Miriam The Evidence continues to Mount that

    Humans Left to their

    Own Devices of

    Ego and
    Selfish
    Greed in
    Ignorance are
    What the World
    Really Should Fear Most

    In Human Created Pandemic Ways

    God Yes Repair and Recuperate US

    if
    possible
    warmly fully alive…

    “Some Days You Eat the
    Bear and Some Days the Bear

    Eats You”

    Hehe Never the
    Less “The Dude Abides”
    With Pope Wings via PopeMobile…

    Just scooping
    Up All the Orange poo…

    Yep Left Overs from Modern
    “Screwtape and all the Minion

    Wormwoods” too

    Sort of like
    this in
    An
    Opposite way
    Without Real SMiLes…

    Yet Random Letters Just
    Messages in an Ocean New
    Bottle Deeper Online Now For Real..:)

    Liked by 1 person

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