I couldn't be a car-making robot

Car commercials are always interesting. They're not like perfume commercials. Perfume commercials live in their own contained universes where nothing makes sense, other than the sense of smell. Car commercials are rooted in our reality. That is the difference. Commercials for vehicles generally have to show you what cars can do. They can go fast, they can help you park, they can connect to your phone, they can maybe save a life. Sometimes in car commercials, they show us where they come from, and I don't know how difficult this is to sell to you, but...

I couldn't be a car-making robot.

True, I am not a robot. That is clear. That immediately strikes me from the record. There's still something to the idea of being a car-making robot, though. You watch it in the commercials. They're so precise, automated to perfection, swift and ready to create more and more vehicles faster than any other method you can think of. Look at these robots, swooping in and taking all of our jobs.

Issac Asimov proposed three laws of robotics:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I'd be lying if I said I learnt of these reading his short story, Runaround, when you know I found out about these laws through the 2004 Will Smith-vehicle I, Robot. Seriously, I have seen that movie more times than I am ready to admit.

Car-making robots should follow those laws. And all robots. And they do. Well, the jury on Boston Dynamics robots is still out. There's no way you can beat up robots that much or make them dance to K-Pop and not be surprised if they uprise.

The problem being a car-making robot is that that is your only purpose. You are designed to make a car. That is what you do. As a human being with delusions of grandeur, it's not the fact that I am not a robot that is a problem, it's the fact that I cannot live by such strict standards.

Becoming your chosen profession is not healthy. I can only imagine the strain it puts onto robots. I choose to not live a life governed by my job and my job alone. I want to see the world, create things (that aren't cars), have fun and be silly. I cannot be a car-making robot because physically, mentally, and spiritually, to make cars is to not live.

This isn't to say I want to break the laws of robotics to prove I am not one. I do not want to injure a human being. I'll obey orders but only in the sense that doesn't fuck the world up. I'll self-preserve mostly because I wanna live forever. We'll see at some point if that means I'll happily become a vampire if that opportunity arises.

As it stands, car-making robotics is not in my future. Maybe I could be the person who fixes robots that make cars, but what if I get too attached? Whether that means feeling sympathetic to their single purpose, or through being impaled by one when they malfunction or otherwise go rogue.

Humanity is interesting. I think we'll never truly give everything over to our robot overlords. The hard stuff, sure. The easy stuff, sure. Robots will come in from both angles, whether that's bottling perfume or making cars. Not everything though. That's the gap I wanna find my place.

Until then, I will continue to go to the movies and watch commercial directors sell us a world in black and white where people throw snowglobes of perfume to the ground, or Land Rovers driving through rivers and over mountains and not just to Waitrose. I'm still trying to find my place in this world. The more I see of those commercial realities the more I think I wouldn't mind trying out those worlds.

Just leave me out of the one where I could be a car-making robot.