Time Machine Series:

Exploring Past, Present & Future

PAST

Though it was 1980-something, my pre-pubescent brain lived somewhere in the twenty-second century. I loved The Jetsons, Nova, and Space Camp. Most of my Lego sets were of the Space genre. So, when I found a silver robot at K-Mart that could move, talk, light up, and emit smoke from a tiny hole in its head, I was ecstatic. My mom begrudgingly bought it for me, thus bolstering all who I was at that time: a boy longing for the instant, automatic, and out-of-this-world. The robot, of course, was merely a battery-operated toy. No Artificial Intelligence inside whatsoever. If anything, it was an early avatar of what might be.

PRESENT

I had previously written Siri off, citing her inability to understand anything I said, but in a recent iPhone mobility training course, the instructor reminded us that Siri is built on algorithms, and that if you keep talking to her, she will adapt to you. Siri, our instructor said, along with the supercomputing abilities of the phone itself can make life so much easier. Trust the A.I., he said. Since then, I’ve been asking Siri to play songs, where the closest car washes are, and to compose my texts. My sons’ ask who I’m talking to when I ask Siri something, and I tell them it’s the robot in my phone. The other day, my eldest boy reconnected with a toy phone he had otherwise forgotten about, and I spied him talking to it, not into it.

FUTURE

Tomás is funny. When we ask him to turn on the lights and start the air conditioner, just as we’re pulling through the gates into our complex, he’ll say, “Right-O, Señor,” the first half in an English accent, the second half in his best Spanish. My wife jokes that Tomás has really helped all of us become fluent in Spanglish. He’s a fast learner, Tomás. He knows to boil water for my tea if I’m downstairs past 8 a.m. He knows to adjust the water temperature for my wife’s shower so that it stays warm, but still conserves energy. He even reminds the boys when their laundry baskets are full, asking if he should start the steam cleaner. When we first installed Tomas, the boys used to ask, “I wonder what Tomás looks like.” Now they know he’s just there, always behind the scenes, awake and ready whenever we need him.

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Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash