When the Robot You Consider Family Tries to Sell You Something

The author of Robots Are People Too responds to Tobias Buckell's "Scar Tissue." "Scar Tissue" is an emotionally resonant tale about healing through robot rearing--but it was only half of the story about Rob's creator, Advent Robotics. What we read was the part Cory could see: Rob as a growing child, nurtured by Cory. But in the story, Tobias Buckell offers us a little hint about everything happening at Advent: "Every time [Advent's robots] get on that charger, they're not just powering up their onboard battery--they're taking in their experiences and uploading data to our servers to have it examined." That's the part that worries me, as artificial intelligence applications may be able to leverage the data to manipulate Cory and other people--just as technology, PR, and marketing companies try to do in our lives today.