The Nervous Laughter of the Super Bowl's Robot Ads

If there's one thing we learned from the commercials that aired during this year's Super Bowl, it's that we humans are definitely not worried about robots or artificial intelligence at this juncture in history. In fact, we find them funny. We're laughing confidently, as humans do when confronted with a new trend or phenomenon that doesn't at all threaten or otherwise discomfit us. No fewer than six commercials that aired during Sunday's broadcast featured either robots or A.I. voice assistants interacting with humans. In each case, there was an implied comparison between bot and human. And in most cases, the message was this: Sure, robots are smarter and more capable than us in many ways.