Robot Boy

According to AOL a "Robot Boy" has just been unveiled. Isn't that just what we needed, synthetic people. Synthetic people who don't actually do anything useful, like clean up nuclear accidents or shovel coal. The robot boy looks like a cross between Chuckie and Jonathon Winters. I don't know about you, but where I come from, that's high-octane nightmare fuel.

When I was a kid science fiction authors used to assure me that robots would take over all of the work of maintaining civilization so human beings would be free to do whatever they felt they wanted to do - finish crossworld puzzles, write the Great American Novel, finally get to the bottom of why most of the spoons seem to be missing from the kitchen. Even Star Trek made the same promises, though it was the replicator more than robots what dun it.

I think I'm disappointed. Instead of being freed by technology to do what moves us, we work longer hours at jobs that suck significantly more than they used to.