Haurani 1

Robot Neighbors and the Threat They Pose to Society

By: Nina Haurani

I felt the need to write this paper after being confronted about my allegiance to the

suburbs of America. This accusation was uncalled for since I am a concerned resident of the

suburbs of America. However, many of the “people” you are living next to are in fact robots. In

this paper, I will be discussing robot neighbors and the threat they pose to society. If you were

not aware, robots are taking over the suburbs and also society. Automation and artificial

intelligence have advanced to the point where humans and robots have become indistinguishable,

you probably have robot neighbors without realizing it. In my study of robot neighbors (RN) I

have uncovered that they are causing non-robots direct harm. In addition, they are causing

generational harm in that their actions affect the ability of non-RN children to succeed. Studies

have shown that 99.99% of RN children equipped with the newest generation processors and

computer learning modules will get into college compared to a staggering 25% of non-RN

children.1 RN are stealing your children’s spots in college and therefore robbing your child of

any chance they had at gaining a decent education and getting hired at a well-paying job.

Not only do RNs steal the hope your children had for the future, but they also pose

detrimental effects to the environment, and therefore society. RNs consume on average 240 KW

of electricity in order to power themselves throughout the day.2 Much of our electricity is made

by burning coal. Burning natural resources like coal adds CO₂ to the atmosphere which first,

contributes to rising sea levels; second, aids in dying coral;and third, creates impending doom. It

is estimated that for each additional one million RN units that are in our society, the time until

1
Steinbeck, John. "Why Robots Eat Mice" The Encyclopedia Britannica, 2017.
2
Buford, Chuck. "How Robots Reproduce" Franklin County Auditor's, 1491.
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Earth reaches a point of no return and cataclysmic environmental collapse, shortens by one

week.3

Others have estimated that we don't need to worry about the entire world exploding in a

“fiery ball of doom” since RNs will have already ruined the economy, and in the same fashion,

they will extirpate society.4 RNs add to the workforce producing goods at a rate that a non-RN

could never achieve because they have replicated and improved upon non-RN tasks. Much like

the RN-children, the RN workforce is immune to error. While on the surface this increased

productivity certainly leads to a higher gross domestic product, economic failure comes as a

result of the RNs lack of consumption of any the goods they are producing. In addition, the RN

does not retire from the workforce and this combination leads to large sums of money sitting in

investment accounts without spending. Robots don’t need to eat or to drink or to buy hemorrhoid

cream because robots, don’t get hungry, robots don’t get thirsty, and robots don’t get

hemorrhoids. The deleterious effects on a society that is no longer able to make light of anal

varicosities and the application of vast quantities of ointment to them cannot be underestimated.

In light of the impending destruction of society, it is important to stay calm, but not too calm

because of course impending doom is near. The RNs have also learned to identify non-RNs who

fear them and want to destroy them. This paper will focus on the identification of the RNs

utilizing observations I have made from a cohort of RNs living in my neighborhood.

After six years of studying, investigating, and scrutinizing every daily mannerism of the

RN in my own neighborhood, I have come to the conclusion that they all feel averse to rain. This

to me seemed the most prevalent similarity between each neighbor. In my analysis of the RNs

daily activities, there was a high correlation between the presence of rain in the sky and the

3
Thomas, Aric. "Why Are My Students Vaping?" Worthington Kilbourne High School, 2019.
4
Beloved. "How to Spoooky" Ghost Tales, 1993
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scarcity of neighbors in sight. The difficulty is that one cannot tell for certain if the RNs loath the

rain or if they learned the behavior from the non-RNs. A survey of my neighbors demonstrated

that a few of the more peculiar non-RN agree with my RNs on this point, unfortunately, this

biased the survey limiting its usefulness. Therefore, based on the survey data and observational

studies, I concluded that if you notice any of your neighbors are out in the rain you will know

they are most likely non-RNs who are trying to distinguish themselves from the RNs. It is

important to make sure you do not accidentally mistake a human for a robot because you must

take note of whom you can trust.

Another potential distinguishing feature is most RNs have learned that non-RNs find comfort

in canine companions. Therefore RNs are almost universally in possession of a canine robot. I

have come to the conclusion that this is to make them more approachable since non-RNs may be

more likely to interact with them owing to their love of dogs. RNs have been shown to use this

interaction between the non-RNs and their dogs to further learn from and improve their abilities

to mimic us. Based again on the cohort of RNs from my neighborhood, the preferred model of

the canine robot is a small mechanical unit that sometimes gets scared of butterflies. I assume the

robot-dogs are much less advanced AI then the robots, and when approached by a Danaus

plexippus, or subfamily Danainae, they tend to freeze and shake in a rather peculiar way.

I am of course in possession of a real dog on my many walks with her, we have crossed

paths with numerous RNs. Another peculiar and distinguishing behavior of the cohort of RNs in

my neighborhood is that they tend to act in a suspicious and apprehensive way towards me.

Typically when they see me or my dog, they will alter their course and cross the street. The odd

behavior displays that the RNs are able to demonstrate emotions of fear and alter their behavior

as a result.
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The last behavior pattern that I observed is that when confronted, RNs have learned to

mask their identities using several clever mechanisms. Firstly, an RN will use what it has learned

about non-RNs to confuse and distract them. For example, Dr. Hashimakura demonstrated a

theoretical model where a computer was able to learn and predict what a human would enter in

response to a series of abstract images so well that the computer then was able to convince the

human subject that they were indeed the artificial intelligence.5 This was done by the computer

telling the human subjects what their response would be, a fraction of a second before they had a

chance to think of it what the object they saw represented. In this way, the humans were actually

fooled into thinking they must have created the images and were, therefore, the computers. The

second and more threatening way RNs mask their true identity is through denial. When I directly

accused my neighbors of being robots, an interesting pattern emerged. Those that I suspected, to

be RNs, acted as if I was in fact the RN. They accused me of lacking any social behavioral

norms because only an automaton would dare be so blunt as to ask someone if they were human

or robot. These accusations are completely absurd and I will continue to deny all allegations

against me. I have even attempted to make my neighbors more compliant by bringing my dog on

my interrogations, often allowing her to play with the neighbors’ dog. This obviously caused me

some confusion when I looked over and saw a butterfly. My dog was nowhere in sight and had

presumably run off, while the neighbor’s dog was sitting there quietly watching the butterfly

with fascination.

5
Hashimakura. "Robots are super Crazy" Ohio State University, 2004