My phone has been ringing off the hook these past few weeks. When I answered, I heard a prerecorded endorsement
for a political candidate. These politicians
and citizens, who have never met me, felt sure that I shared their concerns
about a particular issue. Some of them referred to me by name, as if I was a long-time friend. While such messages are known as robocalls, I
know they're not really made by robots.
Instead, they came from a machine called an autodialer, which uses complex
algorithms to impersonate people and personalize messages.
Yet the name is evocative, and I could not help but wonder:
how might my favorite robots vote, if we allowed them to? Or better yet, how might they advise me in navigating the confusing promises and propositions?
Even if I could understand R2-D2’s noises, I’m not sure how
interested he’d be in elections. He
seems more task-oriented. Give him a
problem, and R2-D2 will find a way to tackle it. This makes him great in a crisis, but when it
comes to complex decision-making as to what’s best for society, I have a
feeling he’d be less help.
Unfortunately, his friend C-3PO wouldn’t be a great help either. He’d be too worried about the worst-case scenario
of any proposal. I think he’d also be
too busy calculating the odds against any particular candidate keeping his or
her promises to assess their relative merit.
While I could use C-3PO as a sounding board to confirm my own anxieties,
I’m not sure he could help me vote for a person or issue.
On the other hand, WALL-E is a true innocent. As such, he would grasp the hope associated
with every issue and politician, and argue that I should vote for those who promise
the most positive change. Seeing the
best in everyone and everything, I’m sure he would urge me to endorse a host of
radical agendas each election cycle.
While I love him, I know that I cannot ignore my suspicions regarding
the potential dangers surrounding each candidate or issue. Further muddying the waters is the knowledge
that too much change isn’t a good thing.
Instead of delivering a promised utopia, too many grand ideas, schemes
and revolutionary changes to how we organize and run our society might actually
bog down our political, social, and financial systems, making it impossible to
get anything (whether it be good, better, or worse) accomplished.
So, in this scenario, I suppose I would have to turn to
K-9. Assuming that Doctor Who or Sarah
Jane doesn’t need him, I think he could be of great help. His personality seems ideally suited to
analyze the propositions and the candidates.
With his ability to assess strengths and weaknesses of proposals, and the
records, personalities, and associations of candidates, K-9 could advise me how
best to vote, given my concerns about what I’d like to see occurring in my
society. Yes, give me K-9 on voting day:
I cannot imagine a better advisor.
The sad thing is that, regardless of how I vote, who comes
into power, and what proposals become law, the result always seems to a constant
slew of half-measures. At best, these
changes allow our society to continue functioning. But usually, they leave us no better off, and
often they affect us so adversely that I find myself closing my eyes, clutching
my head, and wishing I hadn’t voted in the way I did. It is then that one robot's voice rises above
the rest. “Danger, Will Robinson!” cries
the General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot B9 (usually
referred to The Robot in “Lost in Space”).
“Danger! Danger!”
Regardless of whom I chose or how I vote, every day the evolving
political process prompts B9 to repeat his warnings. Sometimes I wish Dr. Zachary Smith would
reprogram B9 to only alert me to the most pressing dangers. But then, I don’t need K-9 to warn me against
trusting Dr. Smith.
Dragon Dave
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