Masque of the Zombie Robot

Masque of the Zombie Robot 1

The virus has spread across the globe. Death and fear of death have created an atmosphere of dread and mistrust. In the end the resulting economic impact could create more chaos and destruction than the disease it’self. (it won’t, but it sounds impressive) Are you afraid? You most likely are not, in fact you may be more annoyed than futurist of the twentieth century would have predicted. The media is stumbling along with an assortment of talking heads broadcasting from their broom closets, basement, and garages with bad backdrops, poor audio quality, improper use of makeup, and bad lighting. The information must get delivered by recognizable personalities, or else it probably isn’t marketable.

We now have mixed messages adding to the confusion;

Don’t go out – yes do go out…What?

Work from home (you must flatten the curve) – Hurry, get back to work!

Wear a protective mask – they don’t work and may make it easier to catch the virus, but they do look cool if you get the right design.

We may have found a drug that could help you – It probably won’t work. We don’t want to get your hopes up, but we’d like to make everything sound not as bad as it might actually be.

Remain six feet apart, although the virus probably travels farther than that….we think. Should you carry a tape measure – we don’t recommend you do, just kind of eye it.

If you get the virus it may kill you – or you won’t even know you have it, which means it is really bad for some, but you’re not likely one of the ones who get it bad……unless you do.

It’s a lot of double speak. It’s also not so great at building trust. I would never have imagined that during a global pandemic I would be ordering out for pizza, but you can.

Everywhere I go I see people wearing masks – not always properly, but they have one sort of on. I’m wearing a mask, it’s pretty surreal, but you do what you’re told……right?

Meanwhile, I’m watching Westworld 3 and now i’m wondering – Is this a simulation? Could it be a simulation within a simulation? Then I realize, nobody would make a simulation this goofy on purpose.

What have we learned so far? You may be thinking that telecommuting will be the new norm with applications like MS Teams, Slack, and Zoom replacing face to face meetings and traveling, but we may find out is that we need more robots – ones that don’t catch or spread disease like humans do. It’s all coming together very nicely. (5G, IOT, AI Avatars, Robotic workers) We just needed a push to motivate us faster down that path, and here it is. Cost. It’s always cost that drives progress. Convenience is usually just an added bonus.

Avatar broadcast personalities always work from home, but usually their home is embedded in one or multiple dispersed servers…ah yes the cloud.

I’m sure they will have better backdrops, and sharper graphics. They might actually be more believable than the current selection of flawed humans.

Robot workers will never need a vacation – unless you consider repair shop maintenance a vacation. Some people sort of look at vacation as a form of maintenance. I think I’m in that boat.

Free thinking, probably soon to be a thing of the past. Not much call for it when you’re a robot………in the beginning……..but that could change.

In closing, I do believe the virus is real and very bad for many people. I think the social distancing is working, and I’m impressed that many people have continued to be very productive while working from home. I think there will be a lot to learn from this long drawn out event. I think this could be a dress rehearsal for an even worse scenario…hopefully that will not happen, but if it does we should be better prepared on every front.

I see more telecommuting in the future and a need for more robust infrastructure to support this change in working culture.

Yes, robots will, and should improve. (I may have been programmed to say that….not sure) – I’m kidding!

Many jobs currently done by people will eventually be automated or performed by robots to some degree.

I think more people will put more thought into developing or augmenting their home offices if they have such a convenience available – this may determine home sales and design going forward.

People might shop a little different, and possibly less often for “essentials”

Job locations will also be impacted from this event. If you can access talent from anywhere on the planet – company location may not be that important to recruiting talent.

One thing I have already learned from this calamity is that I need a new TV. My TV makes everything look so depressing. I keep messing with the settings, but it just gets worse. So for next global pandemic I should invest in a new TV…….maybe there’ll be a sale when everything opens back up. That would be nice.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *