“I can’t really hate the robots,” I say to my husband, about a half-mile or so into a walk up Sawtelle. We’ve passed a smattering of delivery bots already. The one in front of me is a green, doe-eyed model named Noor. “When I see them, I think of Wall-E.”
Almost immediately, déjà vu hit. Did we have this conversation before somewhere closer to home? Maybe near 7th Street, where downtown’s IRL bot armies tend to congregate? “I know I’m being emotionally manipulated,” I add. I’m anthropomorphizing the tech that’s contributing humanity’s demise. Or, something like that. I can’t bring myself to hate the robots, but they are definitely harbingers of doom.
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