Earlier this week, a super-intelligent robot had to be let go from its job as a shop assistant in a Scottish supermarket, so for other, more high profile robots with reason to suspect they might soon be looking for work, these are worrying times.
For, say, robot British Prime Ministers who address conferences of world leaders and say absolutely nothing about Brexit and lots about the risks of the rise of robots, it’s fair to say the long-term prognosis is bleak.
You may have read that shop assistant robot Fabio’s tenure in Edinburgh supermarket Margiotta was brought to a premature end when customers complained they found him “too annoying” and went out of their way to avoid him.
The supermarket’s owners tried to solve this problem by loading Fabio up with samples of pulled pork, a tactic which, in the unlikely event Theresa May is still Prime Minister by Davos 2019, her advisers might want to think about.
Fabio’s problem turned out to be that, when asked for help he retreated to a tiny clutch of stock phrases, and offered correct but entirely unhelpful guidance, such as “the cheese is in the fridges.”
Likewise, when Britain’s Robot Prime Minister addressed a room full of the world’s leading technology experts on the spectre of technological change that currently haunts humanity, it is likely some of them will have noticed whole passages had been lifted straight from a late seventies episode of Tomorrow’s World.
“Technologies like the internet were developed with a philosophy that connecting us together would improve people’s lives,” she told them, which is as true now as it was in 1991.
“In the future,” she continued, “People will harness the power of the internet to send letters instantaneously.
“The houses of the tomorrow will not have landlines. Car windows will go up and down at the touch of a button. Going to the supermarket to do your shopping could end within our lifetimes.”
Still, it was the very near future she needed to be most worried about. The jury is certainly out on which bit of the Prime Minister’s day went worse. Straight after the Brexit avoiding Brexit speech came the short, intensely awkward photocall with the President of the United States, who she’d not seen in the flesh since November’s Fascist propaganda-induced Twitter spat.
In the flash of the cameras, the two leaders stared straight ahead, the “special relationship” appearing every bit as special as the post-car crash date interview on First Dates.
Note for next time Prime Minister – bring pulled pork.
