Forget Robots-Read Books!

"In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself." ~ C.S. Lewis

My Inspirational Essay for August.

It might not seem very inspirational in the beginning, but it ends that way!

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You can listen to me read this essay here:

China is creating robots for ‘emotional support’. Why? Because of the loneliness that more and more people are experiencing.

To quote the Chinese salesman in the video above:

“Many young people are very lonely now. Many people probably don’t have many friends and they have no family or partner. There will be market demands for this kind of emotional companionship and even partner robots in the future. And there is direct demand from the elderly. There are not too many young people now, and many of them are away from home and it’s difficult for them to accompany the elderly.”

“Not too many young people now.” That's a troubling statement.

The eyes of the robots, what do they actually see? They move creepily about, yet they are dead eyes. I am sure they will get more and more life-like as time goes on but they won't have Life. If humans keep staring into those empty eyes, trying to find comfort there, how long will it be before their eyes become dead, too?

Remember, whatever you do, don’t stare into the eyes of the Medusa.

Ancient Greek Medusa relief

I have never forgotten the Bible verses my dad read to us on this topic when I was a child. I like the King James version because it’s what we read in our family:

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! Matthew 6:22-23

The book of Revelation describes Christ’s eyes as “a fiery flame” lighting up the darkness.

Some other expressions about eyes. Eye-catching, eye-opener, keep your eye on the ball, keep your eyes peeled, turn a blind eye, out of sight out of mind, blind-sided, and, oh I see now. In Luxor, Egypt, (where I lived as most of you know by now) the villagers still believe strongly in the Evil Eye. If someone is said to have it, everyone fears that person and keeps their children away from them. Children are not photographed as cameras have an evil eye.

Walking through the tombs of the Pharaohs, eyes are everywhere.

The Eye of Horus is a symbol of protection. According to Egyptian myth, Horus lost his left eye in a struggle with Seth.

Eyes watch us on our computers, our phones, in stores, on streets, at the airport. They even watch us in our homes and from outer space. Our eyes are being scanned to prove our identity, as I recently wrote about. And now, we are told we should stare into the eyes of a robot and pour out our lonely hearts to it.

No, thanks.

“Eyes are the single most effective way of conveying emotion without having to utter a single word.”

Watch this short video, if you dare, to see how eyes are used to manipulate us in scary movies. I know some people will not want to watch it, and I understand. For myself, I face these things head-on—I guess that’s another expression about eyes.

And now, for the scariest part of all.

Moxie the Robot is grooming children to form attachments to robots rather than mothers or fathers, sisters or brothers, or real human friends.

But what is most terrifying is how the parents in the video below fall for it. The Moxie website says “Parenting is tough. We’re here to help!”

Developed by Embodied, a company co-founded by former iRobot CTO Paolo Pirjanian, Moxie is a companion robot made specifically for kids to play with every day.

Notice Moxie’s enormous, hypnotic eyes. How easily children can be indoctrinated through these new “friends”. An Engadget article about Moxie says, “It could be exactly what many kids need during a pandemic”.

Great.

For older tweens, there’s Black Mirror Ashley Too. Watch the short commercial for it. At the end, it actually says that Ashley Too can perpetuate loneliness. And yet, tween girls must have one. What an insane world we now live in.

If we feel lonely or depressed, and there are always times when we will feel like this, instead of finding companionship from a dead-eyed robot, we should pick up a book. Gather books around you. Read. Set this example for your children.

From my story, Night Racer. In the evenings, instead of watching TV with the rest of his family, Max goes up to his room and takes off in his race car for intergalactic space races.

Perhaps it’s too much to ask, but children should pick up a book and read to themselves; enter magical worlds created by their own imaginations, not implanted by robots.

C. S. Lewis admonishes in An Experiment in Criticism to “see through the eyes of others”. Not of robots, but of other people.

As a child, after my chores on Saturday mornings my sister and I took our allowances and walked down to what was then called the “drug store” where they had paperback books for sale. We each picked out a book, bought a fistful of candy, and hurried home. It was at that drug store that I first discovered The Hobbit. How many children today have read The Lord of the Rings series, not just seen the movies?

I spent many glorious afternoons lying on my bed eating candy, lost in the worlds of knights and princesses, talking animals, soaring spaceships, journeys to the center of the earth and a million other places. Books took me everywhere.

My son, Harry, was the same as a child. He loved books and loved to write and read. He still does. Around the age of six, he would run away, although he never got far. What did he take with him? Bottles of water, some paper and pencils to draw, and his favorite books. In his child’s mind, those were the only things that mattered.

Harry writing as an adult

C. S. Lewis tells us that with a book, we never have to feel lonely.

“The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented…. Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality... in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad of eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.”

More than anything, I pray for the children of the future not to lose this magic.

Pencil drawing from my story Orgle the Terrible