The year is 2040. It’s the age of super-intelligent AI — robots with intelligence well beyond human.
Ann finds herself in charge of an old-fashioned warehouse, with shelves, conveyors, and other equipment, with lots of humans working. Ann’s mission is modernization — to bring the warehouse up to date. She doesn’t know how to do it, but she has a good friend, Ben, who runs a modern warehouse, so she pays Ben a visit and gets a tour.
Ben’s warehouse doesn’t have any humans at all. There are self-driving forklifts zipping around, going up and down the aisles, moving boxes on and off of shelves. There are smaller carts, also self-driving. Each cart holds a few plastic bins, and has a robot arm. The carts zoom up and down the aisles, picking items off of the shelves and sorting them into the bins. And then, towards the back of the building, past all the shelves, there is a conveyor. The bins roll along the conveyor past a row of robot arms, which take things out of the bins and put them in boxes. When a box is done, the robot arm tapes it up and puts it on another conveyor that takes it out to where a truck is waiting.
Ann is impressed but also discouraged. She doesn’t know how to design such a warehouse, much less manage the conversion of her old-fashioned warehouse to the new design. Should she try to hire a warehouse designer? And then she remembers another friend, Cam. Cam works for a humanoid robotics company. Cam has been bragging — she says the bots can do anything a human can do. Ann wonders, could they replace the humans in her warehouse? That sounds so much simpler, and faster, than re-designing the warehouse.
Ann calls Cam, and Cam says, “Absolutely, the bots can do anything humans can do. Just tell them what you want, and they will do it. How many do you need?”
“Thirty-two,” Ann says.
Cam: “I’ll send them over tomorrow. They’ll take the bus and be there tomorrow afternoon.”
The next afternoon, as Ann works in her office, some activity in the warehouse parking lot catches her eye. The robots have arrived. She walks outside, and says to the group, “I’m Ann. I’m the warehouse manager. Do you have a leader I can talk to?” The robots answer in unison, “We are connected to each other through wireless. We share a single mind.” Creepy, Ann thinks, but keeps that to herself. She points to the nearest bot and says, “I am appointing you the foreman. Well, I guess the right word would be ‘forebot.’ From now one, no talking in unison. I will communicate through the forebot.”
The forebot says, “No problem. What do you want us to do?”
Ann ponders that for a while. She says, “Do you know anything about warehouse operations?”
The forebot replies, “There are designs and operation documents for thousands of different warehouses in our database.”
Marvelous, Ann thinks, the bots know more about my warehouse than I do.
“All right,” she says to the forebot, “deploy yourselves in whatever manner will make this facility as efficient as possible. It’s almost 5pm. Let’s start in the morning.”
“We can work 24 hours a day,” says the forebot. “We can start now and work through the night.”
“Fantastic! I’ll check on you tomorrow.” Ann leads the robots into the warehouse. She watches as they spread out to study the operation, shrugs her shoulders, and heads home.
When Ann comes in the next morning, the warehouse is scarcely recognizable. The conveyors and shelves have all been re-arranged, but that is just the beginning. A forklift goes by. Ann expects to see a humanoid sitting in the driver’s seat, but the seat is empty. A disembodied head is mounted above the cab. An arm is mounted near the hand controls. A leg is mounted above the foot controls. Then a wheeled cart goes by, also with one head, one arm, and one leg. The leg is propelling the cart like a skateboard.
At the back, like in Ben’s warehouse, there is a conveyor, with a row of arms mounted alongside. “Where are their heads,” she wonders, and then she sees several heads mounted above the conveyor.
“Where’s the forebot?” she wonders under her breath.
A nearby head replies, “You appointed this head the forebot. We took all available resources, and deployed them for optimal efficiency, as you instructed. Do you approve?”
Ann walks slowly back to her office. She sits and thinks. Then she places another call to Cam …
The next day finds Ann standing on her front porch, with ten robots in front of her. “No speaking in unison, ever, in this house.” She points at the nearest bot. “I’m appointing you the forebot. No, we need a new title. Butlerbot? Buttlebot! I appoint you the buttlebot.”
“As you wish,” says the buttlebot.
“I live here with my husband, our two kids, and my 100-year old grandmother. Do you know anything about managing a household, about taking care of children and invalids, about cooking and cleaning?”
“My database includes a full library of household management and personal care manuals, and I also share the experiences of many other robots working in households, nursing homes, and hospitals.”
“Super! You will deploy yourselves as efficiently as possible, while maximizing the well-being of the human inhabitants.”
The buttlebot asks just one question: “How do we balance the needs of one inhabitant versus another? Which human is our highest priority?”
Ann pauses for a few seconds, pondering the possibilities, but her better nature wins. “Each human is equal. You will weight their needs equally. Including even my husband.”
She leads the robots into the house, introduces them to the family, and then relaxes while the robots familiarize themselves with the house, the appliances, and the inhabitants.
The next morning, instead of the usual BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ of her alarm clock, Ann is awakened by the buttlebot’s voice: “Good morning, madam. I have some breakfast here for you.”
Ann opens her eyes, and …
… and what do you think she sees?
Green eggs and ham?
A drone carrying a plate with mpougatsa and turkish coffee.
This sounds like a back cover of a goosebumps novel written by Asimov.
a meal that is made from the invalid grandma.
🧇 🍳 on a table with a head and four legs
Yeah! At first I was thinking it would need arms to transfer the meal, but no. It could climb right into bed with her. It could chat with her during the meal. I wonder where her husband is. I kind of forgot about him.
A lot of spider robots forming a fleet, carrying her favorite breakfast, avocado toast! She didn’t tell any robot about her fav, but the buttlebot analyzed her bank account, kitchen, and her behavior and provided the “best outcome”.
The whole idea of a forebot reminds me of the “Stanford Prison Experiment”: Since the bots understand priority that is which human’s need is first priority, possibility is they might also understand hierarchy. In turn they might also understand the power bestowed upon a given hierarchy. What would become of the forebot? Will the power rise to its disembodied head?
“I would like a veggie omelette, thank you!”