September 11, 2022
Love Death + Robots was a very interesting series of shorts that I thoroughly enjoyed viewing in class. After watching quite the range of futuristic robot content, my favorite short from Love Death + Robots was Automated Customer Service. This was my favorite because I found it hilarious and the most entertaining, but it still had an interesting underlying message.
Set in the future, an elderly community has robots to do just about everything for them, from pedicures to walking their dogs. I found the opening scene to be humorous in the way that it depicted man's dependency on technology. Even the simplest tasks are done by robots in this foreshadowed society. As portrayed, humans are completely dependent on technology today. While the short uses exaggeration to show this, the hidden message behind it remains true. The short cuts to an elderly woman in her home with her vacuum robot. Suddenly, the robot turns evil and decides it wants to kill her and her cute little dog. Using the automated customer service that comes with the Vacuubot, the woman tries to deactivate the machine, but it has a mind of its own and turns murderous. Even in the end when she finally kills the Vacuubot, she learns that the robot forwarded all of the information on her to every other Vacuubot and the robots will mercilessly try to kill her until they are successful.
I watched an interview on Meat Depp, the directors of this short, and how they came together to create it. It was interesting to see their thought process in creating the short inspired by the classic "machine rebellion against human" that we see in many sci-fi pieces. I was able to see how they designed the characters for the animation, which was a really cool aspect to explore. They discussed how they used the design of the characters to highlight the difference between human and robot. The humans in the short are described as organic and fleshy, while the robots are minimalist and super futuristic looking.
This short highlights human dependency on technology while pointing out the flaws in automated customer service. In short, automated customer service is never really helpful and this short does a great job of bringing that to light in a comedic way. In a deeper sense, the way that humans trust and rely on technology could ultimately lead to our downfall: you see it led to Jeanette's downfall as she lives the rest of her life on the run from relentlessly murderous vacuum robots. As technology advances and we continue to trust and develop artificial intelligence, who's to say that these robots wont turn on us and take over the world? While it may seem a bit far off, it is something that I fear: the more power and relevance we give these machines and as we advance technologically, who knows what the outcome will be?
The link to the video I referenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9lTsnlJXcw
Automated Customer Service: EXCELLENT: HALL OF FAME! If you can add the link to the interview on Meat Depp, I would love to watch it too!
ReplyDeleteI added it at the end of the post!
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