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by Hephzibah Anderson
Robot-proofing
Illustration by Kate Hazell
Ensconced in my daughter’s menagerie of stuffed animals and dolls is a small wooden robot. His blocky limbs are elasticated, giving him taunting flexibility. He can do the splits and even swivel his head an owlish 360 degrees. He’s made in China, naturally, and I’m fairly certain that his blue and yellow livery is entirely toxic. But that’s not why he keeps me awake at night.
He is a robot, the friendly face of a future that is hurtling towards us with ever greater velocity, and is simultaneously almost impossible to imagine if, like me, you grew up in a world of Speak & Spells, Walkmans and Teletext. He represents the automation that is already devouring sectors from banking to law and hints at that unfathomable menace technologists call the singularity. He also represents the fear that every parent has about what the future may hold for their child— and what, if anything, they can do to prepare them for it.