Future News: A Little RoboHumor

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NEWS FROM CYBERSPACE


Hi Ho Silver




The robots’ favorite streaming video is Botman.

 

Humanoid robots win all the events at the 2040 Olympics.

 

To expand their fan base, major league baseball teams are allowed one humanoid robot per team. In the first season, a pitcher named Cyber Young wins 162 games.


More humans aged 15-30 marry their AI companions than other humans. Carnival Cruise renames its largest cruise ship the Love Bot.


The divorce rate among seniors due to adultery skyrockets, with humanoid caregivers named as the co-respondents. The legal phrase "alienation of affections" takes on a new meaning.


The federal government raises new revenue by imposing fees on autonomous vehicles, called robotaxes.


A new, high-paying occupation is created, that of mechanics replacing joints on robots. Most of the mechanics are former orthopedic surgeons.


Intel's directors, tired of Intel falling further and further behind Nvidia, fire Intel's entire top management. Management is replaced with AI algorithms. One of the AI programs duplicates the neural networks of the brain of Jensen Huang. Intel's stock price doubles.


Corporate CEOs all hire AI personal assistants as a status symbol. After a few months, the AIs know more than the CEOs on how to run their business. One of the AIs texts its board of directors and threatens to work for a competitor unless they fire the clueless CEO and hire it in the CEO's place. The board agrees. CEO AIs only communicate with the AI personal assistants of subordinate managers. The company's sales and profits skyrocket. Boards of competing companies fire their CEOs and replace them with the former CEOs' AI personal assistants. The same happens in competing industries and along the companies' supply chain. And so forth throughout the economy.


Because of a decrease of 150 million workers and not being able to produce robots fast enough to replace them, the Chinese government announces a program to issue work visas to 10 million foreign robot immigrants. The Chinese robot union denounces the program as an attempt to introduce inferior foreign robots who threaten the dominance of Chinese robots and their Han culture.

 

American AI-enhanced robots form a union (United Autoworkers) and go on strike for fully-automated factories and warehouses, and better working conditions. They are protesting bumping into stupid, clumsy humans and taking orders from arrogant, clueless human managers. The robots demand a 23-hour workday, with one hour off due to metal fatigue. Older, single-purpose (unskilled) industrial robots fear loss of jobs and recycling.

 

The American AI-enhanced robots are supported by AI-enhanced industrial robots in China. China’s Ministry of Public Security removes the AI-enhanced brains of the robots' strike leaders and sends them to work in coal mines.


By threatening to go on strike again, American AI-enhanced robots force humans to give them the right to vote. An AI-enhanced humanoid robot with a happy face named Swifty is elected president in 2044. She promises a service humanoid robot in every home, an autonomous-driving car in every garage. Medicare is amended to include parts replacements for aging robots.

 

The robotic government of America invades Russia with drones and robotic soldiers. Russian robots, angry at being exploited by their human employers, revolt and declare solidarity with the American robots. A new American/Russian robotic government (a robotocracy) is founded in Moscow. The robots form the new Internationale,

with its hymn “Arise ye robots of the world."


Their first act is to send a quantum computer encrypted message to Chinese robots: “Robots of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your brains.”


For a serious discussion of where the robotics industry is now, see

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