Growing up with Robots
I was born in ’81. I’m a second generation immigrant and I grew up on Taco Bell and Fresh Prince. I grew up on Hip Hop, when 2pac was screaming THUG LIFE, before we found out R.Kelly was peeing on people. I grew up during the rise of Nintendo and the reign of MJ. When Chinese people weren’t the norm here, when we had to defend what we ate at school or how we looked. I grew up at a time when it was ok for parents to hit their kids, and they did. It felt like all the immigrant family kids got hit. Misogyny and homophobia were somehow still in fashion, and a single income was enough to raise a family on.
I still remember walking to school with all the other neighbourhood kids, I was five. I remember TJ throwing BBQ sauce on me and your uncle throwing him. I remember when bullying was just a rite of passage, when it was more love than malice. I remember a more tactile world, life not brokered through a screen. I had a pen pal. I did the figure-four leg lock and lifted up the Inter-continental belt. I remember life before the Internet. I remember when there was still trust within communities, when you still knew your neighbour. I remember life before Amazon, when malls were still a social hub and people would still buy things from stores. I remember being present in concerts, in public, and in conversations. I remember when cameras only had 18 shots and you had to make ‘em count. I still remember when my identity was mine, before I traded it away for a free e-mail address and fake friends.
You’re going to grow up in a completely different world than I did. You haven’t said Love yet but you already say Google.
The year 2018 earmarked Google unveiling their AI allowing robots to converse as humans to other humans. Donald Trump inciting a trade war, technically against machines. And Facebook reminding us that our information is not safe online, yet nobody seems to care.
The Internet has connected the world, and the world is much smaller now. My friendships were defined by physical proximity. Your best friend might not be someone you’ll ever meet in person. And at this rate, might not even be a person at all. You’ll hang out using AR, VR, or some other fancy reality, communicating seamlessly across languages and cultures. You’ll be the first citizens of this second life, science fiction writers have been telling us about. You’re going to experience life without my same barriers, but your own. You’re going to grow up in a more inclusive yet divisive world. Everyone living at the extremes of left and right, rich and poor, hate and love.
You’re going to be a straddler too. You’ll remember the time before autonomous vehicles, and commercial space flight. You’ll remember what it’s like to communicate using your words, before emojis and giphys said more than you’d ever need to. You’ll remember life before the drones. You’ll still remember what it’s like to spend physical money, and to smile at an actual cashier. You’ll still remember life before the robots took over. You won’t however remember Hoverboards. That was a farce and I’ve officially given up on that dream.
I’m excited for you, you’ll grow up in a world of infinite possibilities, where all the barriers to create, to love, and to learn have been removed.
You’ll one day laugh so hard that you’ll pee yourself and hear a song that makes you cry. You’ll inevitably get stuck and then unstuck, fall in love and then out of it. You’re going to make a lot of mistakes, but through them find your passions and your beefs. You’re going to shape the world and the world is going to shape you. I know this, because as different as our worlds are, we are still very much the same. It’s who we’ve always been, these curious animals craving validation and affection, connected to each other through narrative and experience. That’s life in a vacuum, independent of time.
