Hello, Robot.

The article discusses the ethical, social and political issues that arise as our environment becomes increasingly robotic. For decades, attitudes toward the spread of robotics have been fraught with contradictions. From the beginning, the debate on artificial intelligence has oscillated between utopian and anti-utopian visions, between hope for a better, technologically advanced world and fear of disempowerment. In this context, we are once again confronted with the question of designer’s responsibility. What was once in science fiction has long since become a mundane feature of our daily lives. We are moving toward a living environment that is smarter, more autonomous, and more robotic than what we know today.

The article provoked many thoughts for me about the relationship between humans and robots. One of the most striking statements to me was:

All of us – humans as well as robots, smartphones, and artificial intelligence of every kind – are slaves of digital capitalism” (Vitra Design Museum 14).

In the past, robotics has driven revolutions in industry. The underlying cause was the significant increase in productivity leading to growing interest in industrial robots to replace low-skilled workers. Today, so-called digital capitalism relies on the emergence of a real need to reduce physical interaction and eliminate face-to-face meetings (especially after the COVID-19 crisis). The digital labor system allows for a differentiation between the material and digital nature of labor, a distinction between the physical and virtual, and a gradual blurring of the paid and unpaid. And as the article says, all of us, whether human or robot, are just a drop in the ocean of this vast system.

This reminds me of the AI painting technology that has sparked so much controversy recently. Some painters on Facebook resisted AI with radical remarks, feeling that AI generation is just something pieced together and that they can’t replace human painters, only garbage. Some people think AI is a tool with which garbage creates garbage and artists use it to create art. One artist who has generated a lot of work with AI claims, “The thrill I get from using AI doesn’t just come from being a creator, it also comes from being a “boss”. I work with several AI tools at the same time, as if I were directing a bunch of AIs to work for me. The AIs are on call 24/7, which is very efficient. I top up the AI tools for about $100 a month, which is equivalent to a day’s salary for my company’s employees.” Such a description makes me scared, yet at the same time, eager to try. In the past, painters could not paint several styles of paintings in a lifetime, or even just one style of work in their lifetime. Now with AI, you can be an artist of a hundred styles a day. This remarkable increase in productivity is so much like history repeating again of what happened during the industrial revolution. People are curious and afraid of such emerging technologies, yet it doesn’t change the fact that we are all slaves. Capitalism will only ever pursue efficiency. Who replaces whom, sooner or later, is a future that will eventually come.