Why do we impute intent to machines? We curse the lawnmower when it won’t start, plead with a sluggish car that won’t turn over… Case in point: my new robot vacuum cleaner. Let’s put aside, for the moment, the propriety of a husband giving his wife a household appliance as a Christmas gift. I know this is a serious issue that cuts across many cultures. But I don’t want to talk about it now, OK?
George (my husband, Tom, chose that name for the robot) really does have a mind of his own. He does not follow instructions. The first thing I wanted him to do was to suck up the needles that fell from our artificial Christmas tree during its deconstruction. I thought it would be simple. I placed him in front of the offending fake foliage and expected him to clean it up. He made one pass through the middle of the mess, bumped into the wall, and then headed for the kitchen. So I picked him up and put him back where I wanted him. This time he scooted under the dining table.
I reminded myself that this is just what he is programmed to do: roll around in seemingly random paths until eventually the whole area is clean—much like the proverbial infinite number of monkeys at infinite typewriters reproducing all the great works of literature. All that was required of me was patience. So I resigned myself to granting George some space and time. I went to the other end of the house to do some other chores.
Before long, there was an incident. The sliding door leading out to the deck was open and George couldn’t resist a chance for fresh air. He knows better than to go down stairs, but unfortunately, he couldn’t manage this small drop off. I heard some distress noises, and there he was, on his back, rollers and brush flailing, like a flipped turtle. I put him back on the living room floor and closed the glass doors.
It was less than ten minutes later that I heard an eerie voice calling to me. I was too far away to catch the words, but I knew it had to be something to do with George. It couldn’t be him speaking, because it was a woman’s voice, not a man. I don’t know why Tom had selected a masculine name, but that was the identity imprinted in my brain. And the voice was creepy. Like that disembodied female voice that you hear in spy movies announcing that you only have 55 seconds to vacate the premises before the whole thing blows.
It was an error message. But I knew immediately, when I saw the carnage, that this had been no mistake. George had known exactly what he was doing. It was a crime of passion: a premeditated attack on a poor defenseless cordless hand held vacuum. That mindless appliance had been innocently resting on a chair, plugged in to be recharged. George knew, even before the idea occurred to me, that I would inevitably become frustrated with him and turn to the mini-Shark for consolation. He was insanely jealous–couldn’t take the competition, the fear that he could be replaced. He viciously ran over the hand-vac’s charging cord, unplugging it from both the wall socket and the minivac. The cord became tangled up in George’s own rollers, bringing him to a screeching halt.
Fortunately, I was able to unravel everything. There is no permanent damage, aside from my own psychological scars. Too traumatized to risk another incident so soon, I resorted to a broom and dustpan to clean up the mess. Both vacs are currently functional and, plugged into their respective chargers. I hope George learned his lesson, but I am not optimistic.
I know this story sounds far-fetched, but I swear it is true. There is some literary precedent. Think: The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat.
