Why the Dancing Robots Are a Really, Really Big Problem.

Like most lawyers, I’m on Twitter a lot and, like most lawyers, I spend most of my time tweeting in an effort to seem funny. (To say the responses are “mixed” would be to assume that I ever get responses). But occasionally, something will crop up that demands a response more nuanced than 280 characters and goes into a little more depth than a gif thread. This morning, I saw one, and I want to discuss the ethics of it with you. Last day of the year in the worst year on record? Perfect day to do some philosophy!

Today’s issue is about ethics largely in the sense that we’re going to take a measured look at something controversial and try to work out how to approach it. Specifically, I want to talk about this:

So our friends from Boston Dynamics are back, and not only does the now-infamous yellow dog make an appearance, so do two humanoid robots and some kind of…wheely…giraffe…thing. It’s self-referential, it gets that people are scared of the yellow dogs, it tries to defuse some of those concerns, and sort of says “we get that 2020 was rough, but this might make you smile.” Not bad marketing, that. But as I said, I want to take look at this from an ethical perspective and give a measured analysis. Are you ready? Okay here goes: