Down With Robots

Up with Dogs!

Dog (Daisy, who is not at all a bad dog)

Dear Readers,

Beware the robot dog. Below are a few excerpts from my latest at Unherd. Thanks for reading! I’m nursing a broken leg for the next several weeks, which gives me more time to write, I guess - and to spend time at home with Daisy.

Of all the modern gadgets to come spilling out of the AI revolution, none is more hateful to me than the robot dog. The thought of replacing man’s best friend with a new and improved artificial companion is folly. When G.K. Chesterton said that vices are virtues gone mad, he must have been thinking of the robot dog.

Clearly, I am not objective. It is my firm belief that of all the human inventions over the millennia, the best is one of our first: the dog. That we created an animal is cool. That we created a best friend is extraordinary. Dogs reveal our humanity to us: we don’t just domesticate animals to have workmates or food sources, as with oxen or cattle, but to have them as companions. A dog becomes more doglike as he grows in his relationship with a human. His emotions become richer, as do his feelings of pride and shame. But the robot dog is an imposter. He is not the creation of human love, but of the technocrat’s sanitised and idealised vision of what a dog should be.

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The robot dog is designed as things hell-bound typically are: with the best intentions. The robot dog is the result of the unholy alliance between compassion and convenience. Compassion for the lonely and vulnerable is, as it so often is in the modern world, the motivating factor behind an innovation. But the cheap compassion offered by a robot dog is a possible off-ramp for family’s and community’s duty to care for an elderly person – “Grandma is happy with her robot Fido, so it’s ok if I don’t visit her.” We are more inclined to make excuses for ourselves if we can justify our own failings by outsourcing care and benevolence.

I am not trying to minimize the attachment an individual living with dementia might have for a toy. These attachments are, to the individual, real and meaningful. But they are often painful for a family member to witness. To see Father, who was formerly commanding, strong, and manly, dote upon a little doll can be disquieting. His attentions are not on those who love him or on those whom he loves, but on an inanimate object. It’s both a loss of dignity and a loss of affection. It is painful to behold. Yet it does not remove the duty to care for one who is afflicted with dementia. Technogadgetry, even if preferred by one afflicted by dementia, is no substitute for human love. This is not because loving someone with dementia always works a change upon them; it is because loving works a change upon us. The pain deepens us. The duty deepens us. The grief deepens us. Of course, if I were to develop dementia, I would like for my own daughters to be put at ease around me by seeing me happy. But more than this, more than wanting their comfort, I want them to be deep, to know the fullness of life in all its painful tainted glory, and to still be grateful for it.

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The robot dog will be designed around the consumer’s needs. It will make no demands upon you. It won’t make a mess, won’t die, won’t cause grief, won’t inconvenience you if you want to go away for a weekend. You won’t have to walk it. It won’t leave fur on your sofa. It won’t poop. The artificially intelligent dog will obey your commands without fuss or bother. All you’ll get is the comfort of a wagging tail: a dog designed to fit your algorithm.

I get it. There is nothing convenient about dogs. My own dog, Daisy, is a catastrophic net loss to my personal convenience. She isn’t just an inconvenience, she is an anti-convenience.

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A real dog will always surprise you. That is because dogs are animals, and animals, even a well-trained one, do not operate according to any kind of human programme. Animals are themselves. They are genuinely other.

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That Daisy is not entirely under my control, not totally knowable, is what gives her a soul and makes her beloved. And that she will one day die, and that the grief of losing her will be real and profound, makes her beloved. Her work is to delight us, surprise us, inconvenience us, frustrate us, love us, and to deepen us by being dog.

Please read the full essay here at Unherd.

Ps. For the cat lovers, I have two cats, too! Biscuit and Stuart. They are also entirely themselves: cat. But there is no push to make robot cats - probably because it simply wouldn’t be believable to create a robot cat that was caring and responsive to its owner’s preferences.