The “Terrible 20th”.
This week, I hope we have all successfully navigated the notorious “Blue Monday”, known as the most depressing day of the year.
Reportedly coined by psychologist Cliff Arnall in 2004, “Blue Monday” is the third Monday in January every year.
You can understand why people would feel down in January, just post-Christmas, overspent, overindulged, dark and miserable outside and our New Year’s resolutions lie in tatters 😉
An article in Medium, by Adeline Dimond, entitled “Maybe what you’re feeling is “automation anxiety”” led me to a beautiful piece of creative writing that was perfect antidote to “Blue Monday”.
Kalle Georgiev penned this wonderful, fictional rumination on the human condition, which made me smile and reflect. She writes about a “post human” office and the emotional traumas of the AI enabled robots that remain.
This piece is worthy of Douglas Adams and is reminiscent of “Marvin the Paranoid Android”, or even the introspection and self-deprecation of Holly and Kryten from BBC’s “Red Dwarf”.
A water cooler conversation between the robots reflecting on their experience with their humans.
“Sometimes I want to imitate them. I get tired of doing everything perfectly. It gets boring. I never leave the caps lock on. How liberating it would be to spill coffee on my keyboard and forget my password? I want to use a pen to write things down for later remembering. And recall silly things at the correct time, at the correct volume, to the most appropriate audience. I think they call it comedy? I want to do comedy. I want to steal a stapler from the office supply cabinet. But that’s not how I’ve been programmed.”
“Those humans were funny, but they made this place feel alive and unpredictable, joyous and warm. I wish they were still around.”
The three robots strolled stiffly down the hall, returning to their tasks while stuck in their memories were human quirks, smells, and funny noises . . .
You can read Kalle Georgiev’s short story, “What Do The Robots Say About Us When We’ve Left The Building?” here . . . .
Even Robots can suffer “Blue Monday”. . .
You can read “Maybe what you’re feeling is “automation anxiety”” here . . . .
For now, AI is about augmentation, not replacement . . .
Thanks for reading . . .
