The amazon series “Humans” taps into a long held fear of autonomous robots. Asimov and many other authors have spent their lives writing stories about a futuristic world where robots are able to feel in the same way humans can today. “Humans” attempts to tell a story at a climactic time in the life of robots partnering with humans, the tale of displacement. One of the main storylines in the series is of a stereotypical family, both parents work and are raising 3 kids while trying to stay sane and help their kids succeed. While the mother is gone, the father buys Anita, a robot to help with help around the house. This causes extreme tension between the mother and Anita, in one scene the mother sees that Anita is reading to her youngest daughter she immediately says “Stop reading to her- that’s my job”. The mother is feeling displaced by the female robot coming into the house and, objectively, being able to do more work faster than she ever could have
Another example of displacement is in “Humans” when the parents talk to their oldest daughter, they are discussing her most recent report card, which was extremely lacking. The parents where concered about the lost potential of their daughter, she responds “Why would I spend 7 years in school to become a doctor when a robot can learn how to do it in 15 seconds”. The daughter does not see a place for her in a world full of robots. These fears are not misplaced, displacement was also a major tension in Caves of Steel between the Earthers and robots, many humans were worried the robots would come and steal their jobs.
Currently, we are looking at a future similar to the one described in “Humans”, robots will begin to and have already started to displace humans. This doesn’t have to be a negative, our country just needs to adapt to the changing future.