Eating with Robots

Uncanny Valley

"Your kindergarten teacher was one."

"Ms. Fischer?"

"Yes"

"How did you know?"

"She didn't sleep. Ever."

"Ew, Dad! How did you know that? Did you go to her house?"

"Yes. Well, not really."

My father kept searching the room methodically from side to side. "The true creep factor, the real uncanny valley, is the issue of intimacy—not get-it-on intimacy—but the messy results of potentially falling in love, the danger of giving oneself over to a machine." He stopped short at a locked door. Today, my dad had a warrant. He didn't usually bother. It was too expensive. He popped the door open with a small crowbar. It was a closet filled with shoe boxes. "With a machine, is it intimacy, or codependency played out with a partner who cannot reciprocate? Is it cleaner or messier than falling in love with flesh and blood?' He was mumbling as he flipped open boxes. "What if that robot is a better partner? What if they piss you off less?" Each was a pair of expensive women's shoes. No contraband, no proof that an android lived here.

My dad rifled through the last two rooms. He wasn't satisfied with anything he found.

"What was I saying? So, Ms. Fischer, she was always pacing, so I set up a motion-detection camera. She'd pace around her apartment all night. Usually she was prepping and creating handmade materials for the classroom. I thought it was humanly impossible. That's why I set up the cameras."

"Why didn't you zap her and collect? We never have enough money."

My dad had a pained expression on his face. "You hated daycare and preschool before, but as soon as you went to her class, you were happy. I could leave you with her and you wouldn't cry. And she wasn't operating heavy machinery, not driving a school bus."

"But why did you start tracking her in the first place?"

"A parent breakfast. She ate a Danish upside down. If I see something like that even one time, I get suspicious."

"Why did..."

"Never mind, Jacob. She got shut down later anyway—saw the name on a report." He paused. "It doesn't matter. It was years later. You were in third or fourth grade."