It’s the year 2042 and man kind is down to its last handful of survivors. We are royally screwed now as the last attack from the Robot Armies of what they are now calling The United Countries of Earthitron 1 killed the last of the females. But hey, at least we can use the dead as a food source now to stave off starvation. How did it come to this we ask ourselves? Those blasted scientists thought they could advance our society with Robots!

No, this isn’t the plot to next year’s summer blockbuster starring Vin Diesel. This will be OUR future if Robot technology continues to advance the way it has in recent years. Oh sure you must think I’m crazy, I’m overreacting, and I’ve seen way too many movies. While you may have 2 out of 3 correct you cannot deny the proof I am going to supply you through the rest of my frantically scared-for-my-life writings.

Let’s start exposing their schemes with the latest models from Toyota, shall we? Of all the advancements in robotic technology they could have made they decided to go with a Robot that plays the violin to entertain old people at nursing homes? Well, Robotic community this is one future old man you won’t be entertaining. Fighting in the Great War perhaps but I will take hearing the emotion and talent of the human variety when I want to hear the violin or other assorted instruments.

The second model they recently unveiled was a wheel chair that could navigate itself. Designed to help people with disability move around more efficiently it shows us today that robots of the future will have no problem navigating their way through the massive amounts of the dead human bodies strewn about the battlefield. Good job Toyota. There’s some forward thinking for you!

Honda is also taking step to make the ASIMO a much more efficient robot. How does better communication between the bots sound? How about higher dexterity and more intelligence? Well yeah, communication between the robots would be a wonderful idea. I know I don’t want to hear them scheming and plotting our demises behind our backs! And anyone who has ever played D&D will tell you higher dexterity means a faster and more evasive enemy and more intelligence means they’ll be able to outsmart you! Apparently no one at Honda or Toyota plays D&D because they are too busy working toward a brighter and better APOCALYPSE!

But wait! The robot advancement news gets worse!

According to one article, “Scientists” at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology equipped a group of robots with lights and sensors used for communication and detection. They stuck several groups of these robots in rooms with areas that, if the robot rolled over them, would charge or drain their battery. They programmed what they call “genes” into the robots that help govern how it reacts when they find these hot spots. The robots were programmed to move randomly and when they sensed light and after time kept going right back to those hot spots to juice up for the coming war… I mean rest of the experiment.

The crazy thing came next when the scientists took the genes of the robots that lasted longest in the groups and combined them to create “offspring” (apparently working genitals and reproductive systems don’t come for another couple models from now). The scientists found that as the generations progressed the robots would communicate to each other where the food sources (charging stations) and poison (power drain stations) were. Some became nefarious enough to send false signals to their robo-buddies so they could keep the charging station all to themselves while some were heroic enough to sacrifice themselves for the many (I guess they can’t all be bad… I mean would it be considered racist to think all Robots are bad?)

So moving on from robots, it’s important to remember that we have more than just them to fear after all. What about automation? Now I like automation, of course. I’d love to simply walk into a room and the lights go on, the music plays exactly what I want to hear and a steak starts cooking for me. But this is a dangerous road of automation that engineers are travelling down today. Military engineers have created remotely piloted aircrafts that carry 3 moderately sized warheads. The aircrafts are deployed in large numbers and networked together for efficiency. Generally they are given a target to find and when it is found they seek orders from their command (the dudes sitting in a bunker miles away with his finger on a button). Now this is all fine-well-and-good, but here comes the scary part. Should they aircrafts spot their targets, ask for approval, and NOT receive any command from a human being THEY CAN MAKE THE DECISCION TO FIRE FOR THEMSELVES! What if in those few moments between losing contact and finding their target the whole situation changes? What if their programming gets screwed up and they then hit the wrong targets without any approval? Well then we’d have our first victims in the Great Wars, wouldn’t we?

“So what, D.J., How does this have any bearing on life today?” Just think about how automated our daily lives are. Ever used a public bathroom before? Everything from flushing to drying your hands is completely automated. Sure it sounds like it’s a good idea, but have you ever had those things work for you?

- The toilet. For guys at least, you’re standing there minding your own business less than 6 inches from the pool where who knows how many other guys have been and it suddenly decides that that slight movement you made was you saying “I’m done! FLUSH!” So it flushes and sprays you with what you hope to God is just water.
- The sink. You notice there’s no handles to determine hot or cold (or on off for that matter) so you put your hand under expecting warm water. NO WAY DUDE! You need to do the secret “give-me-water-you-dumb-faucet” wave for 5 minutes on all the sinks in the place and even then the water you get out is either ice-cold or melt-your-flesh-hot!
- The towel dispenser. No wait, this place is “green” so you won’t find those wastes of paper here! Because “green” is going to matter to us when we fight for our lives against our precious robotic technology.
- The super-powered air jet drier. Either these things work or they don’t when you do another wave and a dance. But when they do work it’s either like a 5 year old blowing out his candles (not nearly enough to get you dry!) or like you just stuck your hand behind the jet engine of a 767!

We can’t even get through a simple experience such as going to the bathroom without having to fight advanced forms of technology! So what should we do to fight these soon-to-be superpowers? I don’t know… Anybody know any Thomas Andersons or John Connors?