Troim-Kryzl

Tag: Robots

  • Exo-Ho-Ho-Ho

    „… and don‘t mess up your lines. Whatever happens, you go Ho-Ho-Ho. Nothing else. No yippee. No Ha-Ha-Ha. No yuck – what the hell? No wisecrack. No talking back to the clients. You go Ho-Ho-Ho, and that‘s it. And you shut up. And you go Ho-Ho-Ho again. Got it, Junior?“

    The tone alone would warrant my good old favourite of a response to bossy behavior, as in go f*ck yourself, combined with a proudly raised middle finger. But this is 2046, I‘m as broke as the peoples republic of Sotimmona, and just out of what they call prosocial rehab. The next middle finger will get me straight back into prison. Not that I‘m not getting used to it. Spent most of the last ten years inside. The beds are lousy, the food is rotten, that much I can take. But even thinking of the back breaking work shuts me up all right. This time, I’ll do what it takes to stay outside. In my best neutral-to-subservient voice I go:

    „Yes sir. Got it, sir. Will Ho-Ho-Ho, sir.“

    Doesn’t impress the master of my universe who shoots back:

    „Shut up, Junior, we‘re not a debating club. Get dressed, and get going. Stage 5. When the lights go on, you go Ho-Ho-Ho. The elves will distribute some giveaways from your bag. You go Ho-Ho-Ho. And keep it up, until the lights go out. Got it, Junior?“

    This time I nod, silently. Does the trick. My tormentor walks away, leaving me to figure out how to get into the red heap of stuff that is supposed to be my costume, and how to operate it. I‘m five feet three, but there‘s is cloth for an eight feet giant, at least.

    I decide to start with the enormous head. It’s super bloody heavy, but I manage to lift it an put it on. Eureka, I can see, through the masks nostrils. Ingenious. Vision a bit blurred, because of the white moustache blocking part of the view, but this will do. Except I can‘t carry this weight any second longer. Have to let myself sag to the floor, to get some of the weight off my shoulders, before struggling out of the damn head. 

    „What the hell, Junior? Don’t tell me you never operated an exo-skeleton before? If ever I get hold of the idiot at HR who hires you kind of idiots for a living, he‘s rat food. Stand up and shut up, or you won‘t be ready on time.“

    My urge to middle finger him is only very partly chilled by the fact that the boss is right, for once. This is my first exo-skeleton, and seeing him activate it, it starts to make sense. I don‘t need to carry the weight of the head after all. I only need to climb up into the thighs, grab the steering handles, understand how to make it walk, right leg, left leg, step, step, step, step, stop. Piece of cake. This contraption is good at walking and standing, no balancing skills input required from my side, a little steering is all it takes.

    „That‘s it, Junior. Let me just get this moustache combed out of the way, we don‘t want you to stumble into the clients, fun as that would be. And don‘t forget: Ho-Ho-Ho. You go Ho-Ho-Ho. No more, no less, just Ho-Ho-Ho. Stage 5. Hit it, Junior!“

    No time to appreciate my bosses skill at teaching a newbie the exoskeleton 101 in less than ten minutes. The light is on. Supersize me walks one, two, three, four slow steps towards the big red number five and the two tiny elves – wait a minute, are these real eight year olds, or what?! What the hell happended to the abolition of child labor? – with the enormous brown bag. The elves look kind of worried. Something at the back of my head, of perhaps my boss backstage, screams „Don‘t forget the Ho-Ho-Ho“, and I utter my first Ho-Ho-Ho.

    Wow. The inbuilt sound system is powerful. That Ho-Ho-Ho is totally not my voice. Wouldn‘t have managed that kind of booming sound at twenty. No wonder I‘m not allowed to say anything but Ho-Ho-Ho. With that kind of size and that kind of voice I might be able to start a riot.

    Would love to use that voice. To protect the poor elves. One just got bitten by a particularly aggressive little pest of a client. Five years old, at most, but already well versed in the art of torturing less lucky folk. Didn’t get a second giveaway, each kid only gets one, and bit the elf. And what must be dad only tut-tutting along.  Would be great to yell at the little pest. Something on the lines of „Stop that! And give back the toy. Bad boys don’t deserve toys!“. With my voice, I‘m sure the message would hit home. But I go Ho-Ho-Ho. Have to go Ho-Ho-Ho. Not going back to prison. Have to go Ho-Ho-Ho.

    Ho-Ho-Ho. This bloody kid is vomiting all over the place. Are the parents going to do something about it, or what? Yep, finally, sort of. They are yelling at the elves to get someone to clean up the mess. Ho-Ho-Ho. Someone in an unidentifiable uniform brings a sign „Cleaning in process – Robocleaner on it‘s way“. Very low tech, doesn‘t help with the look and smell of the mess the kid made, but quietens down the parents a notch. Better than noting. Ho-Ho-Ho.

    The uniformed one brings what must the Roboclean, defines the zone to be cleaned with what looks like the foam referees use on the football pitch, activates the device and walks away, taking with him the sign. Ho-Ho-Ho. 

    My inner former manager identifies opportunities for quick and easy efficiency gains: Invest in a couple more Robocleans, skip the sequence with sign, fire half of the uniformed ones, should work. Ho-Ho-Ho. Am I starting to miss the spreadsheets of my youth? Is this senile nostalgia? Oh no, one more vomitter. Ho-Ho-Ho. 

    Better think about something else, anything else, preferably without a smell. Like robotics. Progress really has been slow. The Roboclean wouldn’t have surprised anyone back in 2026. Same for my exoskeleton. They need some stupid eighty year old without a proper pension plan to go Ho-Ho-Ho and „drive“ Santa, in 2046, instead of going full robot giant?! Ha-Ha-Ha.

  • Brave New Care

    This is so wrong. Totally, globally, universally wrong. As if he was doing harm. Him, the genius, doing harm! Well, now he’d love to, deep down, sort of. But one doesn’t beat up ones mother. That’s just not an option. Even if ones ears still ring with her shrill voice:

    “Dagon? Dagon?! What the hell, Dagon?!”, she went. “Why the hell did you dress up poor granny like that? And she’s all shaky and confused, the poor thing. What the hell has been going on here?!…”

    One of the few good things about this mother of his is that there’s no need to answer. She does all sides of whatever talking all by herself. She pretends to ask, you pretend to wait for her to stop talking to answer, she rants on and on, until she suddenly runs out of steam and goes “Oh, whatever, why would I even care?…”.

    Dirty socks in the bathroom, cat food on the couch, car parked on the herbs patch, granny in a Spider-Man outfit – moms answer to this kind of petty detail is a gush of rhetorical questions.

    Both Dagon and his dad have their would-tell-you-if-you’d-let-me-face ready for the occasion. They know to wait patiently for the soundtrack to subside. Mom will wash the socks, clean the couch, plant new herbs and get granny into her usual casual, at some point. It would be more efficient if she’d get on the task right away, but because of some quirk in her setup she has to rant first. Life can be tough in this way, but guys can handle.

    Thinking about handling tricky stuff, Dagon turns his attention back to his future carebot. 

    Technically, Carl is his dads homework, a humanoid robot supposed to learn to navigate a non-standardised environment of the living quarters type.

    Carls prototype brothers Adam and Ben try their luck on the shop floor and in the open space office, respectively. The three of them share experiences. Dad has promised his boss that Adam, Ben and Carl will coalesce into David, one omnitasking robot fit for any purpose in any environment very, very soon. Many, many people will pay very, very big bucks to buy many, many Davids. This will make dad filthy rich enough to retire to the Bahamas. He will hopefully take mom with him, leaving the house for Dagon and his sister to enjoy. Not ideal. Dagon isn’t keen on his sister, and even less so on her friends. But still a huge improvement on the current arrangement.

    Dagon has stakes in this project, high stakes. He needs to understand what went wrong and goes: “Carl, do your hear me?”. That’s Carls cue to switch himself on. “Carl, that’ll be all.” makes him turn himself off. Having an omnitasking robot around can get messy. One needs an off switch.

    “Good afternoon, Dagon. How can I be of assistance?”.

    This is of course Carls standard response. Never would he go „Now’s not the time, Dagon, busy here.“ or „Oh no, not you again, here we go for one more futile request.“ The whole point of an omnitasking robot is that’s always ready to do whatever you want him to do.

    “Carl, why did you dress up granny as Spider-Man?”.

    Dagon has learned to start conversations with Carl with simple questions. Interacting with him gets complicated enough soon enough.

    “Thank you for your question, Dagon. Granny Rose asked for a red dress. The Spider-Man costume was the only red dress available and it fits. Anything else you need, Dagon?”.

    Dagon can’t help admiring Carls creativity. He didn’t go „There are no red dresses in the cupboard, project aborted.“ or order a red dress from an online shop. He has internalised the rule of never no shopping sprees implemented after the chocolate spread flood and found a solution in the cellar, where mom keeps Dagons old Halloween costumes. Good boy robot! Except mom said granny was messed up. Time for one more simple question:

    “Carl, how did granny behave during the act of dressing?”.

    “Granny Rose voiced some concerns and displayed light physical resistance, especially around the removal of her panties. Under these circumstances her dressing took three more minutes than I anticipated. I apologize for the delay. Anything else you need, Dagon?”.”

    Uh oh, here we go, again. Dagon is by now familiar with the meaning of „light physical resistance“. From the point of view of a two hundred pound robot, most of what a frail little old lady can achieve is very light resistance indeed. Granny probably screamed and kicked wildly. Mom didn’t mention any injuries, though. Carl didn’t cause her bodily harm in his quest to get her into the costume fast. Good boy robot!

    Would have been better if he had stopped. Dagon carefully words his next question:

    “Carl, did it occur to you that granny wanted you to stop dressing her?”.

    “Yes, Dagon, I considered this hypothesis. It had to be discarded. Granny Rose didn’t want to remain naked. She explicitly said so. Anything else you need, Dagon?”.

    “Carl, did it occur to you that granny would have preferred to get back into her pyjamas, instead of staying either naked of getting dressed up as Spider-Man.”

    “Yes, Dagon, I considered this hypothesis. It had to be discarded. Pyjamas are nightwear, granny was to be dressed for the day. And she clearly asked for a red dress.“

    Dagon wonders if there’s just a hint of wounded pride in the omnibots voice. Carl and his kind are meant to come with something akin to motivation, an urge not just to do things, but to do them well. Carl faced an obstacle, no red dresses in grannys cupboard, came up with a solution, and wants to be praised for it. But why did he insist on the red dress? Or did he? Dagon asks:

    „Carl, did you tell granny that there are no red dresses in her cupboard?“

    „Yes, Dagon. I told granny that there are no red dresses in her cupboard. But she cried, and said it needed to be red. She pointed to the picture of the young couple with the baby above her bed, to show me how red the dress had to be.“

    Dagons brain insists oh showing him a picture of him still co-housing with mom and dad twenty years from now, in abject misery.

    Above grannys bed there’s a picture of her and her late husband with baby mom. Grannys younger self wears a red dress all right, but this dress is of course long gone. Granny is missing her late husband, she would like to turn back the clock to happier days. Any human carer would have understood, provided some comfort, dressed her up into whatever is available – and perhaps made a mental note to order a red dress suitable for granny’s current circumstances, if the funds permit. But try explain this course of action to an omnibus…

  • No Ant Farm

    „You‘re kidding, right? You must be kidding! You can’t do this to patients. How are they going to survive a week at the hospital, with this app around? They don’t want to know! Sometimes, you’re so naive, Nerdie. Or would that be plain old insensitivity?“

    She‘s joking, of course. Her face tells him as much. Wrinkles around the eyes = joke. Eyes bulging under heightened brow = anger alert, last chance to avert row. Facial expression consistency, that’s one of the many good things, about companion robots. No ambiguity, none of the messy diversity displayed by conventional humans. He’s still intrigued by her reaction, has to ask:

    „What is wrong with transparency, chérie? My app will be telling them what‘s going on. That‘s always good to know, isn’t it? Aren’t we all longing for more information, about our circumstances, to feel in control and stuff, to quote a certain expert?“

    He’s proud. Remembering that last bit of psychology, that’s very much unlike his former, socially oblivious self. It was an excellent idea, to integrate a social intelligence unit into her capabilities. Sometimes, this leads to boring lectures, sure. But some of the knowledge she forces onto him is valuable, does actually help him understand what’s going on.

    She’s laughing now, and shaking her head. Looks cool, with her long braids.

    That‘s another upgrade he doesn’t regret. The standard model comes with short, no nonsense hair, and a very basic wardrobe. Three days in, he had had enough of being reminded of his bad old school uniform days. He bought her a set of six sexy wigs, and a closet full of 2030 style velvety dresses in bright colors. An excellent idea. Looking at her now cheers him up, even if she lectures him about stuff he’s fine not caring about. And here it comes, her next lecture:

    „Well done, Nerdie, well remembered, you‘re such an excellent pupil. Yes, people often do like to know stuff. Yes, understanding makes them feel like being in control. But, Nerdie Sweetie, often is not always. Let’s look at this together, shall we, to find out why your perfectly well intentioned app will be perfectly unwelcome in the real world…“

    He does love being praised. If only her tone was slightly less condescending. Mental note to have another go at the advanced settings manual, to find out if there‘s a way to fine tune her advice mode. All fine and good, to learn, but preferably without being made to feel like an idiot.

    „… If I‘m not mistaken, your reasoning went like this: ‚Patients in a private hospital room can‘t see how many other patients there are on the ward, or what the nurses are doing. Not seeing any action makes them assume there isn‘t any, which creates resentment. Fit the nurses with tags, create a map of the ward, show how the nurses are rushing around, ambiance improved…‘“

    He can‘t help nod his agreement, strongly. Hearing her spell out his app concept makes it sounds even more convincing than his own, less structured musings. This is one hell of a good idea, and should be worth a nice pile of cash. He can practically feel the efficiency improvements. How the patients with less than urgent needs will wait for a nurse to be nearby, to call her. This alone should save one FTE* per year per ward easy. His idea is a winner!

    „… Will readily admit this sounds promising, at first hear. Patients, and perhaps even the wider general public, like everybody in the area who funds the hospital through their taxes, and is bored enough to feel like watching, would be able to see how hard and fast the nurses are working. No more prejudices, about endless coffee breaks in staff rooms, no more public sector bashing…“

    That’s it, exactly, that‘s how he envisages this to work. It‘s such a splendid idea.

    „…  Nerdie Sweetie, would you please stop nodding? I‘m starting to worry about your neck. Thank you! Yes, you came up with a pleasant little fairy tale. Ward transparency app, as entertaining as an ant farm, and a much bigger thrill to watch. Nurse and doctor dots, different colors, of course, rushing around the map, from patient to patient. The patients in their beds, why not have them fade, each time they ring the bell, until they get cared for? 24/7 action, for free. The nurses are guaranteed to like the idea, no problem getting them to accept those tags.

    We agreed on no nodding, Nerdie Sweetie, need I remind you? Thank you!

    Now to the interesting part: Why is this app never going to happen? Not because of staff resistance. Their unions might object, because that’s what they’re there for, it’s their role, but the overwhelming majority of the actual staff would love to prove they’re worth their wages, and more.

    And that’s our first problem, Nerdie Sweetie. If your app proves, and beyond reasonable doubt, that hospital staff work hard, how the hell are we supposed to keep paying them so badly, without feeling awkward? No good feelings that way. Especially for extremely well paid office dwellers who’d never hesitate to perform some holiday research at the desk because they’re convinced everybody else is having their moment of on the job slacking, too.

    But it gets worse, Nerdie Sweetie, much worse.

    How the hell are patients going to survive all the stress and hardship that comes with a disease that needs to be treated in a hospital, if they can’t rage about lazy staff?

    Their anger about the bad luck that got them there needs to go somewhere. You need something, to complain about, to visiting relatives, and for the benefit of your own aggrieved self.

    Fuming about incompetence is still a possibility, if you take away the laziness presumption, but that way lies an awful lot of mental hazard. If incompetence, you might get worse, and even die. Who‘d want to think about that? Exactly, zero takers. Laziness, on the other hand, will cause some suffering that can be moaned about, but mostly none of the lethal kind…“

    She has got a point. Again. Her tone needs adjustement, definitely, he has to find and recalibrate those settings. But what she says sounds very much like the lack of rationality that will forever confuse him, and complicate his dealings with fellow conventional humans.

    They often don’t want to know.

    He’s one of them, but sometimes he feels closer to her.

    He could ask her how come, but somehow he’s rather not know…

    *FTE Definition: The Full Time Equivalent is a measure that allows the company to calculate the equivalent number of full-time employees it would have on a given period of time

  • Ronnie Roofer

    Ronnie Roofer

    “Come on, Seedie, good boy, we can do this, one more effort. Less than two hundred square meters to go, you can’t fail me now! We can do it. This will be one more wonderful roof garden, all green, and capturing lots of carbon to deliver oxygen, like the Amazon reloaded in Nigeria. We can do it, Seedie, you’ve got what it takes, you’ve got it in you, one more effort!”

    Ronnie is glad there isn’t anyone else on this roof. Would be annoying, to be overheard talking to the robot like it was a dog. It’s the right size, walks on four legs, the planting end could be mistaken for a head at a distance, and the rear stabilizer for a tail, but that’s it, for similarities. 

    Seedie is an emotional moron, would never wag its tail in joy to celebrate one more outing. It’s scientifically clever, hard to beat at soil analysis and melioration. It’s well balanced, able to fearlessly stalk along steep roofs that Ronnie’s excellent head for heights considers too dangerous to access. But Seedie is an emotionally blank. 

    Seedie doesn’t yawn and moan about lack of sleep in the morning. It never inquires about Ronnie’s last night, to force him into a big brag about an endless series of romantic achievements that of course never happened. Nor does Seedie counter with an even bigger brag. No bragging, no groaning, no yawning, no calling for breaks. Seedie just does the job, without ever clamoring for a raise. Seedie is the team mate from hell, a blank striver.

    But Ronnie is as close to tears as a tough guy dares admit, and to himself only. They have been working together for eight years. Seedie was Ronnies first brandnew Roof Planting Mate.

    When he started at the firm, directly after his roofer course at the Lagos University for Applied Environmentalism, his manager didn’t trust the novice with proper tools.  Ronnie was forced to work with a semiautonomous model so outdated and hopelessly inefficient he had to go online for help, and in his own unpaid time!

    Couple of days and posts later, Ronnie had become a card carrying member of the Roofers for Bright Skies union. A senior activist, code name GetDone, had explained how to proceed, and his trick worked like magic. It was actually quite simple.

    One confidential chat with the owner of the three roofs Ronnie was in process of transforming into a tomato-cum-herbs jungle, to inform him of state of the art rooftop planting practices, sent the client calling the firm to yell for proper modern tools, or else bye bye contract.

    Right on the next day, Ronnie had barely made it onto the middle roof with his museum exhibit of a hopeless tool, Seedie was delivered. A brandnew, state of the art, autonomous roof planting robot, straight from the manufacturer. Ronnie hadn’t been the star student in his coding class for nothing. He did it, all on his own. After a mere three hours of setup and configuration, Seedie was ready to go and prompty did a marvel. Together, they achieved more in one day, and it wasn’t even a full one, than Ronnie had gotten done in his whole first week.

    The client was so pleased he tipped generously, a traditional appreciative practice that is unfortunately getting rarer and rarer, with all the explanations one has to provide since the switch to ecash only. Some kinds of digitalization really don’t qualify as progres…

    But Ronnie has bigger worries to tackle right now. Never mind a few missed tips. Him and Seedie, they have been such a great team, right from their exhilarating first day.

    And it’s not just all the work they’re getting done. Ronnie spends more time with Seedie than with his family, and he can always tell him anything, without fear of disclosure.

    No problem to talk to Seedie about his betting wins and losses, both best no shared at home.

    No risks in uttering doubts around the excessive passion at his neighborhood Liverpool fan club. Seedie doesn’t freak out when told that, honestly, it’s but a game, in the end, no need to go crazy about each and every match.

    Even wondering aloud about setting up his own firm, to specialize on medicinal plants like cannabis and poppy for rooftop greening, is perfectly possible and safe in Seedie’s presence. 

    Ronnie has of course made sure to deactivate all spy functions. He attended a union workshop on how to safeguard privacy in the presence of AI tools, in his own unpaid time, at his own expense. A very wise move. Not even his pretty professional expert self would have guessed just how many data could have been gathered by something as innocuous as Seedie, the settings permitting.

    Ronnie and Seedie, they’ve seen a lot, over the past eight years, and now Seedie is falling apart. If its malfunctioning gets any worse, if they keep missing targets due to repair downtime, Ronnie will have to call management to ask for a replacement.

    Even thinking about this betrayal breaks Ronnies heart. Two years ago, Seedie would have had a chance to get updated and come back an old fashioned but robust tool with a couple of years to go. But nowadays, after the sudden switch to the new ambient quantum cores, no one will bother. The tech unit is sure to declare Seedie scrap, have him dismantled and recycle the components. 

    Ronnie didn’t see the switch to ambient quantum cores coming, despite hearing about some of it one the news, and he hates himself for his mistake. He doomed good old Seedie.

    There must be a way to keep going, for a couple more months. Weeks. Days. Hours.

    Pretending not to notice the minimal progress since his last cheer, Ronnie once again goes:

    “Come on, Seedie, good boy, we can do this, one more effort. Less than two hundred square meters to go, you can’t fail me now! We can do it. This will be one more wonderful roof garden, all green and capturing lots of carbon to deliver oxygen, like the Amazon reloaded in Nigeria. We can do it,  Seedie, you’ve got what it takes, you’ve got it in you, one more effort!”.