B. (because there's no v in Japanese)

[John Bailey]

Last night I stayed at the "robot hotel" about an hour outside of
Nagasaki. Staff are almost all automated.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/japans-robot-hotel-a-dinosaur-at-reception-a-machine-for-room-service

Got me thinking how the contention in V. about humanity using whatever
is its current level of technology as a metaphor through which to
understand itself is such a wonderful one. The uncanny valley crap is
1% of it. Anyone who says with a straight face that we're hardwired to
freak out at the sign of something close to but just a little
different to us should be invited into a discussion of race,
disability, transgender, and so on.

But the "robots" there were just automata, not AI, and not much more
technically advanced than the automata of Europe and Japan 200+ years
ago. They're objects of delight, the same way.

On the plane to the airport, back in Melbourne, I was sitting opposite
two Middle Eastern kids who were cradling a robot baby. I'd heard
about these - automaton infants that cry etc to teach youngsters what
it would mean if they got pregnant as teens. They were as embarrassed
as all hell to have to be carrying this thing around in public. They
obviously came from a refugee family, too, given our neighborhood.

The robots V. warned us about are none of these but, to me, are more
like the drone pilots that carry out missions in the Middle East.
12-hour shifts in a dull portable in the Nevada desert, disconnected
from the acts they're carrying out on a muted screen, and forbidden
from discussing any of this when they get back home each day. That's
humanity driving itself into the deathkingdom.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l