Robots

Many fear robots because they threaten to replace us. And they can if humans were only meant to do repeatable tasks without the need for judgement or imagination. To make sense of the myriad of personalities and faces that make up humanity, which seem impossible to organize, we have developed social models that (perhaps overly) regulate our lives. Many feel such limits are needed because free expression is chaotic and dangerous as the outcome is unpredictable.

So humans are trained and encouraged to be the same even though variation in personality is common even within a family, let alone the whole world. To maintain a semblance of "civilization", this moving target seems to demand that we give up our personality to preserve societal order.

I do not know how to organize the Billions of beautiful variation of people that live on this amazing balance of natural forces that make up our Earth. But I do know that our differences are what make us human.

So we do have a choice: either imagine a vain world of robots or let humanity show it's true colors. But do we really have to choose. Why not build automated machines to do the menial work while nurturing our children to be free to show their true colors. It all boils down to how much faith you have in humanity. Some say we are fallen, unworthy and unable to do good. Others are optimistic and think we can fly to new galaxies. Most actually live in between the 2 extremes not sure which is true of themselves. Look at history. we see truth in both and can learn from the past.

I dream of a world where humans create things that do not take over our lives but frees us to dream and inspire one another. Humans can graduate from useful to inspiring and make good use of machines. But first we have to stop believing we are mere robots ourselves.

David singing Cyndi Lauper's classic: True Colors

Al Jarreau jazzing up Handel's "Why do the Nations"