My Baby’s First Friend Is A Roomba(?)
For medical reasons, my wife and I had to get rid of our two cats. Not forever, just until we get the all clear from the doctors. I felt bad about temporarily evicting the cats because I always wanted my child to be around animals. When my wife and I take Dmitri for a walk in the neighborhood, his face lights up whenever he sees a dog. Our place isn’t well suited for a dog, and I doubt the doctors would let us have a dog when cats aren’t okay. Fortunately, there’s Roomba.
Roomba lives in the corner of the dining room and comes out to play each day with a pleasant melody that chirps, “I’m ready to suck up all the gunk in your house and keep it in my garbage collection box until my red trashcan light starts flashing, which signals that if you wish for me to suck up anymore gunk, you will need to empty my garbage collection box!” It beeps three times, like a countdown timer at a swim meet, before whirring about and erratically bumping into things. I never feel like it’s doing anything, but lo and behold the house is always cleaner after it drunkenly stumbles around.
I enjoy Roomba because it’s proof that the robot apocalypse is still way off in the distance. Humans have our flaws, but I’m fairly confident we could dispatch an angry horde of Roombas. My son enjoys Roomba, too, but for different reasons. He sits and stares at the thing as it tries to maneuver around the dining room then crawls after it whenever it decides it’s going to make one of its mad dash straightaways to a new part of the house. The best is when Roomba ventures into Dmitri’s play area and gets stuck between all of his toys. Dmitri goes over and gently pets Roomba. And by “gently pets” I mean “smacks it like a maniac until Roomba is jostled free and can run away.”
I wonder about Dmitri’s relationship with Roomba. Is it his pet? It seems like there’s more to it than that. Fish are the epitome of a pet, and they don’t really do anything except stare at you and go “blub blub blub.” I’ve been blubbed at a lot and am pretty sure none of it meant “I love you.” At most, it was “You are the giant blurry thing that puts food in the fish tank, and we appreciate your responsible nature.”
Roomba is definitely more than just a pet. It shows a very basic form of affection toward Dmitri in the sense that its guidance system can detect his presence and adjust course so as not to ram him. The funny thing is Roomba doesn’t give a damn if it bumps into me or my wife. It’s only Dmitri he tries so carefully to avoid. I’m amazed it has never hurt Dmitri or otherwise upset him. It seems to care for him, and the caring isn’t a one-way street. Dmitri definitely reciprocates. As rough as he is with the robot when it gets stuck, he has a genuine desire to help the thing get un-stuck. When you get that kind of mutual affection, that’s when somethings transcends the boundaries of just being a pet and enters more sacred ground of being a companion.
It’s not so strange to think one of my son’s first companions is a robot. We live in an age where artificial intelligence is developing at a rapid pace. The Roomba isn’t the only robot we have in our house. We also have a Google Home. In due time, Dmitri will be able to interact with the Google Home himself. By the time he’s old enough to drive, there will likely be highly advanced artificial intelligence. So advanced that people will start to fall in love with them. I don’t know how I feel about my son falling in love with a robot. I suppose it would be okay so long as the robot was a nice robot and not one of those “kill all humans” species-ists.
Fortunately, Robowife is a long way away. In the meantime, there is Roomba. Admittedly, Dmitri will likely grow bored of Roomba at some point. Its level of companionship is pretty rudimentary. The sad thing is, as my son develops by leaps and bounds everyday, Roomba remains the same. Eventually, the cats will move back, too, and provide Dmitri with a level of companionship Roomba could never provide. Despite that, I know Dmitri will have a special place in Roomba’s circuits. Even as it meanders around the house thinking, “clean clean clean,” I know that then Dmitri walks by it’ll think something else.
“Friend friend friend.”
