The New Breed summary

Even before steam-powered engines, electricity, and the industrial revolution, people worried about human jobs being lost to machines. In the early 1800s, the famed Luddites staged an uprising over the deployment of textile machines. But history has shown that, more often than not, technological advances in the workplace have expanded economies and ended up creating more jobs.

But when it comes to animals, technology really has displaced some workers for good. And this goes beyond the obvious – like the tractor replacing the ox and the car replacing the horse.

Some supermarkets in the US are already testing out robot employees. These tall machines roam the supermarket floors and alert human employees if there’s a spill or fallen items that need picking up. Unfortunately, the robot can’t clean anything itself, and it’ll sound a clean-up alarm when it runs into a large spill or even a single spinach leaf lying on the floor.

In this case, and others like it, robots and automated systems have led to an uptick of what’s been called “fauxtomation.” This is when the addition of something like a self-service kiosk ends up causing technical problems and more work for the employees than they had before.

Do you remember Clippy? Clippy was the name of a virtual assistant in previous versions of Microsoft Word that would sporadically pop up with tips and suggestions. People hated Clippy. Eventually, experts in human-computer interaction were brought in to Microsoft to explain the reason for this hate: Clippy broke the social rules. It popped up without being asked. It commented on what you were doing as though it were sitting in the shadows spying on you.

In other words, Clippy was obtrusive and judgmental – exactly the opposite of what a good computerized companion should be.

There’s little doubt that we’re going to continue bringing more robotic devices into our homes. People have already grown used to conversing with digital assistants through their phones and smart speakers, and it’s likely that these kinds of devices will only become more diverse and more capable.

There are undeniable advantages to this. Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders have marveled at how AI robots and software like the Siri digital assistant have opened new avenues for improved communication with their kids. But there are real and present risks as well.

Let’s say you purchase a robot dog. You bring it home and teach it a whole bunch of adorable tricks. If you then take your robot dog to the park, you probably won’t want someone to walk up and kick it, right? Or, what if the owner was the one stomping on his own robot dog as it flailed and yelped under his foot? Should such behavior be considered acceptable?

The issue of robot rights will certainly become more relevant as people continue to add robotic devices to their households – devices that can learn, provide companionship, and even be considered part of the family. In considering robot rights, we could again learn from our history with animals and perhaps even discover ways of improving our current laws and regulations in the process.