Technological Pets

Every passing day the number of devices lingering in the luxury of our homes has increased. Not long back TV and radio were the monopoly, but with the onset of technological advancements the intrusions of devices in our lives has plummeted massively.

However what is interesting to see is that these devices are not just mere objects of technological advancements, or machines which help us do things, they are somehow an extension to our identities. Going away from what they traditionally are supposed to do i.e. take care of us and our needs, these shiny intelligent objects in-turn make us take care of them.
Say for instance the very daily chore of "Charging your devices", such a chore never existed around 20 years back. If you were to draw a parallel devices of today are more like pets.
Just a few days back i even heard a car company advertising " It loves you back", and thats what is happening, we are dealing with a modern day pet like scenario.
So we feed our pets ( charging), clean our pets( delete unnecessary data), even take our pets to the doctor ( Servicing) also at times we get angry on them( why the hell doesnt this work!!!), get worried about them ( I think my machine has a virus) and at times also change their look ( new theme or wallpaper!!).

And then the very lovable devices love us back. They tell us what others are doing ( facebook) or when to do some thing ( alerts) or even entertain us ( games ). They even destress us.

Believe it or not, slowly or steadily our lives are being intruded by these machines. And i dont say this negatively, its good...but when you here cases where divorce cases happen due to facebook or even suicide to that extent, it really looks too horrible to accept that a few mother-boards are ruling over our lives.

If they are supposed to help us...arent they supposed to take care of themselves...imagine a phone charging on its own when its low on charge...or a system that reloads itself when it feels it is running too low.
Ofcourse some skeptics would call this...losing control. its like our pet is doing things by itself, and we are just using it for our own entertainment, how cruel. Going by this, the definition of companionship has evolved or changed. So if you ask what is next? I dont see robots entering our houses far away.

I mean look us, Indians, we are a country who has people resources for every small thing. We have a housemaid, a cobbler a security guard, a road sweeper a drainage cleaner  and god knows how many others.
We are a society based on service thinking. But how would u define the supply of such labour in future?
Ask any maid, cobbler or any labour class human, what they want their kids to become...well trust me most of them would genuinely want their kids to take up some intellectual job where he/she would earn more...not just money but also respect...And even if there may be many selfish parents who may say my kids will continue my profession, very less number of people ideally desire to become that.
This is where the next wave of robotics comes into picture. Our habits will not die, we will still need a laundry guy to press our clothes. Or some guy who cleans our drainage.
As i see it in future these guys will still be experts at this, however this time around someone else would do their jobs and they would actually control them. And this is where the robots will enter our lives. They will become synonymous to our present day devices...we will feed them and they will entertain us.


Location: Bangalore, Karnataka, India

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