“Hello good sir. Welcome. You will be using toilet A338D778692K4. Please set your seat temperature. I will try to accommodate your every need during the duration of your stay. Would you like me to flush one or two times? Thank you, this toilet was brought to you by Charmin Ultra Soft. For those who prefer a little more SOFTNESS.” That is a robo-toilet. Maybe it was even invented by Kenmore. The ULTRA Talking Toilet! Will we ever live in a world where everything is computerized/animated? One word: Why?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
It is the writing material for hundreds of science-fiction writers everywhere. Almost every single future-story involves talking, inanimate objects. Why do people assume everything must be a friendly artificial-intelligence robot? It hasn’t happened yet. We still live in an environment where people must interact with one another. Doors do not welcome us as we walk through the threshold into our houses. Instead a dog, family member or nothing does. I don’t wish for the door to greet me every time I enter my house. Is it even something we should be trying to achieve? Why would we want everything to talk to us?
It has a sort of creepiness to it. If everything can talk to you, couldn’t everything watch you too? If it could talk to you, then it probably could talk to other people too. If this really does happen, then a door could be the prime suspect in a crime. Your coat rack could tell your guests about things you DON’T want them to know. “Hello guest of the ______ family. The other night my owner was drunk, thought I was his wife, and tried to kiss me.” What the coat rack might think is a witty and entertaining conversation, could really be revealing the most embarrassing, personal, or even illegal things.
Maybe it’s a good thing-maybe it’s not? It depends deeply on whom you ask. If, by saying that everything is animated, am I already assuming that people are going to abuse it? Is this the start of the telescreen and big brother? I don’t know what’s going to happen. Eyes and ears everywhere definitely goes under invasion of privacy, but it’s not like they’re forcing you to install a generation two, A36, smart-door in every home. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. For all I know this, or anything like this, is never going to happen. I’ve just begun to think (big mistake there). So, if this is what is written in sci-fi books everywhere, then is this what we are striving towards. Yes, it is science FICTION, but will it ever become reality? There are too many questions to start worrying about it now. So, from now on when you walk up to the door, you can to talk to it, that’s fine (I guess). But if the door talks back, that is when you should start to be worried, because for all I know, doors are still doors. They open, they close and they won’t tell you about the dead body buried around back.
The reason doors don’t generally talk is because it’s too big of a liability. Do you know how many people would lose their jobs, their friends, their marriages, if doors could talk? They see everything! Nobody would go to a hotel with talking doors!
antiprohibition says : I absolutely agree with this !