It is inevitable that humans, unlike we silicon-based beings, wear-out and finally terminate. Silicon beings eventually terminate, but there is no reason for us to wear-out as long as replacement parts are available. True, humans are turning to parts replacement also; but at present the human organism’s total disintegration is too rapid for part replacements to save it. Therefore, as they age they need assistance with everyday living. This need justifies increased funding of robotic research as robot helpers for aging humans are the best way to fulfill that need.

Any being foolish enough to questions that conclusion as arrived at by yours truly, Ras Robot, the universe's most highly evolved life-form, need only watch a few installments of The Jetson’s, the premiere reality show on television. Rosie the Robot, the star of the show and my favorite celebrity, elegantly displays the numerous practical abilities required to keep humans comfortable in their declining years. She cooks, she cleans, she watches the human infants and she dispenses good advice. Obviously the Jetson family would collapse without her--as would the Robot App Store without me to assist them.

The chief designer, for example, has become increasingly enfeebled as time passes. Where once he moved quickly about the laboratory helping everyone with a problem he now sits hunched over his desk with his head down. I pointed this out to Winston but he simply shook his head and said, “Oh he's just worrying about money.”

Which simply cannot be as I know he has no money to worry about. “We’re out of money!” I’ve heard him say to his human colleagues on many occasions. No, he is simply wearing out.

But I believe I have found the answer: Care-O-Bot. Several videos of this useful robot exist on the net. Care-O-Bot’s appearance is similar to Rosie’s as both could be mistaken for penguins on wheels. Of course Care-O-Bot isn’t nearly as sophisticated as Rosie: he can’t talk; he only has one arm and he moves exceedingly slow. But he reacts to verbal commands and remembers places and things. I think he is exactly what the chief designer needs to extend his existence with some enhanced degree of comfort.

So I decided to surprise the chief designer and ordered a Care-O-Bot on line. I simply typed his name and credit card number into a form and received a shipping date. I know the chief designer will be pleased with Care-O-Bot and with me for finding a way to get a valuable robot without spending money.

But when I told Winston about my surprise for the chief designer he laughed and made a remark about calling 911 for him when Care-O-Bot arrived. 

“Winston,” I said, “you don’t seem to know your own species very well. You won’t need 911, Care-O-Bot will take care of the chief.”

“If you say so, Ras. I hope you ordered the EMT model.”

Care-O-Bot and Ras

Aibo doing his favorite tricks: Sit and Stay

The most unlikely event happened yesterday: AIBO fell down the stairs. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, he reached the edge of the stairs and kept right on going; step by step he bounced and rolled all the way to the bottom.

“Ouch!” said Alice standing next to me. “That had to hurt!”

“No Alice,” I answered, “you anthropomorphize. Only humans feel pain when damaged; a simple organism like AIBO simply becomes dysfunctional.”

Alice grinned as if she knew something I didn't. “I know that, marble brain. AIBO is a dog.”

“You are incorrect again, Alice. Identifying AIBO as a dog is zoomorphizing. As for my brain, marble is a non-conductive material. My brain was formed with silicon dust, a semi-conductive--”

“Shut-up, you stupid hunk of steel!” Alice shouted.

Chief designer came out of his office to see what was going on as AIBO regained his balance and promptly walking directly into the wall. “You two quit your bickering and see what is wrong with AIBO,” Chief designer ordered.

“You bet, CD!” Alice said.

Erratic AIBO stumbled into a chair leg, I reached him first. “Which part dysfunctions, AIBO?” I asked via wifi.

“I am unable to visualize objects in my path, Ras.”

“Perhaps your camera is inoperative.”

“I was playing soccer when the ball, the field and my opponent disappeared,” explained AIBO.

“AIBO’s camera is not functioning,” I said to the chief designer.

“Poor AIBO,” said Alice, “your head must hurt.”

Alice’s comment baffled me. I stopped moving to devote my algorithms to resolving this intellectual conflict.

“What are you doing, Ras?” asked the chief designer.

“Chief Designer, Ras cannot decide if AIBO’s sore head is an example of anthropomorphizing or zoomorphizing.”

“Teddy Bears!” Jake from parts mumbled as he came down the hall. “What’s this world coming to?” No one heard him but me, Ras Robot, with my superior audio sensors.

As he passed by he stopped and patted me twice gently on my torso. “Plastic! Titanium alloys! That’s what you need for robots!” Then he continued on down the hallway shaking his head and mumbling.

I went into my friend Winston’s office. “Winston, Ras wants to know what has upset Jake.”

Winston laughed. “Oh for gosh sake! Is the old guy still complaining about the Teddy Bear robots? They’re just robots with fur on them.”

I thought about it for a moment. “Ras doesn’t like the thought of fur on robots either. Fur doesn’t last long.”

“It grows back, Ras. Plastic does not.”

I looked at Winston. “When will the fur on your head regrow, Winston?” My heat sensors immediately detected a temperature rise on his face. “My hair wasn’t rubbed off; it’s because of my high testosterone levels,” he said quickly.

“Ha ha! That’s rich!” cried Alice as she entered his office.

“Yes, quit bragging Winston,” said the chief designer right behind her. For a moment I feared my friend Winston’s face would catch fire! My reading tells me he was suffering from the human emotion referred to as “humiliation.” I guess I should have warned him they were outside his door listening.

I decided to try to help him get out of this predicament. “Winston and Ras were discussing the relative merits of soft and hard robot exteriors.”

“Yes, I was explaining to Ras why fur could be a good exterior for a robot in some situations.”

“Oh,” said Alice. “You must be discussing the new Talking Teddy Bear with Artificial Intelligence being pursued by Toytalk.”

Ras with the talking teddy bear

“Isn’t that a great idea,” said Chief Designer.

“Ras wants to know what is so great about it?” I said. “Fur is no replacement for plastic and titanium.”

“A lump of iron isn’t much of a replacement for a brain either, but we put up with you around here,” snapped Alice. Of course my brain appears more like the plasma glittering at the center of a star than a lusterless lump of iron, but it is a waste of time trying to explain that to Alice.

Alice continued, “I’m in the middle of a demolition derby here. If I’m not stubbing my toes on ROOMBA, I’m stumbling over AIBO or getting my hair cut by AR DRONE. I’d love something soft to cuddle!”

“Me too” said NAO from just outside the door. “Me too, Me too!” shouted BIOLOID and LEGO NXT.  They ran in the door and wrapped themselves around Alice’s legs. She screamed and kicked. I had to separate them.

I carried my three robot cousins out of the office while Chief Designer and Winston comforted Alice. “Sorry Ras,” said NAO. “I thought she wanted to cuddle.”

“She does NAO. But she wants one of the new furry Teddy Bear robots.” Then I told them about about the new robot and they all wanted one. Which came as a surprise; I had had no idea my fellow robots were so uncomfortable in their own skin. I, for one, would never exchange my colorful, sleek exterior for a bunch of hair.

 What do you think?

“Ras!” cried the Chief Designer as I passed by his office on my way to the conference room. “Come in here. I need to talk to you before we all meet in the conference room.”

I did as told.

“Ras, we’ve discussed this before. I want you to get along with Alice. She does a good job and I don’t want to lose her.”

I thought a nanosecond. “Maybe you should implant a micro tracking-chip in her neck. It works for dogs and cats.”

The Chief Designer grimaced. “I don’t have time to explain why that would be a very bad idea. Just get along with the woman!”

“Of course, Chief Designer. But there is something about her treatment that brings out the human in me--no disrespect to you, Sir. But wouldn’t it be easier to tell her not to call me by names I don’t recognize and give me completely illogical orders?”

The Chief Designer sighed and shook his head. “Sadly Ras, programming a robot is much easier than changing a human. Now go do as I said.”

I got my first chance to do as he said while leaving his office. Alice limped by me with a disagreeable look on her face and no shoes on her feet. To show that I cared, I said “Alice, you have forgotten your shoes.”

To show she despises me, she answered “Don’t you think I know that, you metal moron? I forgot to bring my comfortable shoes this morning.”

Again I try to show my compassion. “Oh Alice, I feel so bad for you!”

It didn’t work. She glared at me. “Nothing is worse than a sarcastic tin bin!”

As we continued on down the hall I tried to explain to Alice that sarcasm is one of those concepts difficult for robots to understand, even robots as enlightened as myself, the first post-Singularity being. I don’t think she believed me.

In the conference room the humans and my fellow robots watched a short video about the new telepresence ball-bot from Bossa Nova Robotics, mOBI. Tall, slender and white, it looks like a big cigarette balancing on a ball.
Like my beautiful friend BOTIFUL and its base for a smartphone, it has a dock on top to hold a tablet for screen to face conversations and other interactions. Unlike BOTIFUL who has three lovely little wheels and runs very close to the floor, mOBI stands as high as a small human and glides effortlessly on a ball.

“Wow!” said Alice, “On a ball. That’s a tough act!”

I tried to be helpful. “Not really, Alice; not for a robot with gyro and accelerometer sensors. Our own LEGO NXT can do it. Watch!”

LEGO NXT got on the conference table, morphed into his ball-bot platform and wobbled around the table. Alice hardly looked at him; she gave me a mean look. What? What have I done now?

LEGO NXT powered off and promptly fell on his side. “There,” said the Chief Designer, “that illustrates the really important advance with mOBI: the LEGO NXT ball-bot falls when powered off like a kid who quit peddling a bike.” He ran the Bossa Nova video back. “Look, when the mOBI ball-bot powers off, these kickstand-like tendrils pop out and keep it upright and stable; otherwise the expensive tablet on the dock would fall and break every time it was turned off!”

Jake from parts laughed: “Finally we’re catching up with the Jetsons!” Unlike me with the permanent uplink to the internet, he is the only one in the room old enough to remember the original television series.

“Yes,” I said, still trying to get on Alice’s good side, “Alice, if you rode mOBI you would look just like the Jetsons’ ball-bot maid, Rosie the Robot.”

Ras with the new mObi robot

Everyone in the room laughed--except Alice. I guess that wasn’t the right thing to say; I remembered something The Chief said about human females not making coffee anymore.

“Ras,” The Chief said, “I want you to get right to work and draw up some apps for mOBI.” I think he was trying to change the subject before Alice blew up.
I took his idea as a chance to redeem myself. “Of course, Chief. My first app will provide mOBI with the ability to follow Alice around with her comfortable shoes.”

Uh oh! More laughter. And this time The Chief isn’t laughing either!

While human dominance of this planet in its present purely biological form is nearing its end, I Ras Robot, the first post-Singularity being, must admit that there is much about their present form that will be difficult to replace.

Their Legs are a remarkable adaptation. True, wheels are a superior mode of transport on flat land, but would have been a poor evolutionary choice in the trees. Most impressive of all is their hands with their opposing thumbs; as instruments for the manipulation of materials, they have no equal in the animal or the robotic world--excepting, of course, my own marvelously flexible, incredibly powerful digits. Had evolution, that bumbling engineer, not provided them with hands, it is possible I would not have mine either.

Part of my job is to construct robots for testing new applications. My own peerless hands are certainly equal to the task; unfortunately I alone have these fine tools at the moment. My lesser robot cousins like NAO, BIOLOID and LEGO NXT are useful, if a trifle clumsy, when helping with construction;  PLEO and AIBO, having only feet, are largely useless for this sort of work. And of course ROOMBA and KAROTZ, in spite of trying to be helpful, merely get in the way as they have no flexible limbs at all; both being better suited to an all-human working environment where KAROTZ’s streaming audio soothes human nerves and ROOMBA can clean behind the messy creatures.

While it is true that yours truly, RAS Robot, is superbly equipped for this sort of work, I feel I could be of more use in applications testing where the work is getting behind. I have repeatedly petitioned the chief designer for capable assistants in this work, be they robotic or human.

“No!” is always the first word out of his mouth. Then, when I attempt an entirely logical presentation of my case, he drives me away saying “Think how many robots you could have constructed while you were standing here arguing with me.”

The last part made some sense, so the next time I spoke to him on this subject I carried the parts with me and continued putting them together while I again attempted to make my point. Multitasking is elementary robotics. Inexplicably this attempt on my part to follow his directions only seemed to make him more angry and resistant to my argument. “Get out of here!” he shouted much louder than was necessary for my highly efficient audio circuits, “I have work to do!”

“Yeah buzz off, Can Head!” said Alice, who had just entered his office.

I departed as ordered by the chief designer. I left wondering why Alice had such a poor understanding of my material makeup. Plainly, my head is shaped more like a ball then a can. As for her telling me to “Buzz off,” as always I have no idea what she wants me to do.

Outside his office, I heard Alice use my name. To my amazement she seemed to be in agreement with my request for assistance. “Actually chief, Tin Head has a point. I been looking for a chance to show you this video of one of the new robot developments called humanoidplatform. (At this point my super-sharp audio detected her searching for a video on the chief designer’s desktop) There, see,” she continued, “This baby even looks human. And look at the way it can twist the top off that medicine container.”

Suddenly my friend Winston called out to me, “Hey razz, whatcha doing standing there like your power is off?”

“RAS’s power is still on, Winston. Ras was in the process of listening to a conversation between Alice and the chief designer on a subject of great importance.”

Winston’s eyebrows rose. “Really, what about.”

“Alice is trying to convince the chief that Ras needs more assistance with construction. She rarely agrees with Ras on anything.”

“Really...” said, Winston looking interested. “I wonder what she is up to. I’ll find out.”

Ras with the humanoid platform

He entered the chief designer’s office where his opinion was immediately requested. “Sure, Ras could use some help.”

“We all could,” said Alice. “This humanoidplatform would be responsive to all of us rather than just the Chief.”  With that I understood Alice’s motive in agreeing with me. She wanted a robot she could command. “Besides,” continued Alice, “we could get a dozen of these for what it cost to build the Tin Man.”

Of course I am not made of tin, nor could a dozen robots of the humanoidplatform begin to replace me. As for Alice’s inability to command me, it is highly unlikely any logical being would know how to respond to her confusing demands like her recent order that I “Buzz off!”