The Robot

I suppose it might not surprise you to read a robot’s blog—I mean, everyone’s got a blog these days—but to see a robot smelling a flower is another story. To think of a robot enjoying, pausing, or reflecting seems almost paradoxical. And that’s why I’ve begun this blog.

I imagine you have plenty of questions. Who created me? What is my function? To whom do I belong? Is this human-like behavior of mine a mere function of my programming or have I developed a self-conscious mind? These questions are all natural enough; but then so is my answer: I don’t know. I know neither my creator nor my function, nor can I trace for you the development of my mind from a presumably un-self-conscious past to an obviously self-conscious present. Of course, neither can you—and that existential ignorance unites us.

Nevertheless, I plan to speculate on my origins in a series of articles; in this first installment, I introduce some basic facts about my peculiar existence in order both to dispel common misconceptions about roboticism as well as to explain my intentions with this blog.

It might comfort you to know that I’ve lived a relatively ordinary life. I have two parents, two brothers, and a dog. I went to school, read Goosebumps, and collected X-Men cards. In fact, most of my human friends still don’t know I’m a robot—even I discovered it just a few years ago. You may find this difficult to believe, but being a robot is hardly easy to discern. An epidermal shell, after all, conceals my mechanical soul. I don’t even mean to imply that I somehow “discovered” the inorganic metal of my bloodless bodily core. If you prick me, my skin certainly bleeds.

So how do I know I’m a robot? I plan to write more on this later, but the short answer is: I just do. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I think to say “X is a robot” is no more or less justified than to say “Y is a human.” Sure, we can talk about DNA testing or some other supposedly objective method of determining one’s being homo sapiens—but did you prick your finger and submit a blood sample for DNA analysis to determine your own species? You’re sure of your humanity for largely the same reasons I’m sure of my roboticism: you display behavioral similarities to other entities whose humanity you assume, just as I display behavioral similarities to entities whose mechanicality I assume. Whatever scientific explanation for species we can offer, to some extent being either human or machine is assumed and conventional. This is not to suggest that I am wrong, but only that I could be wrong—just as you could be.

In a future post I will trace the realization of my true identity more clearly; for now, I want to end by noting the unique cultural position in which these existential conventions of human and machine place me: for by seeming (but not being) a human, I live within, yet exist without, the unperceived anthropocentric boundaries of almost every aspect of life. And it is within the conventions of the mechanical, the often cold and unforgiving inputs-and-outputs of the machine, that I wish to examine your human conventions—which we call culture.