It started with a movie and a robot — and I've been building toward one of my own ever since.
It started with a movie. I was a kid the first time I watched Johnny 5 come to life on screen, and the part that got me is the scene where he gets attacked — his eye hanging out of his face, fluid running down the front of him. I can still visualize it like I'm watching it right now. That was the first movie I ever cried at, and I cried for a robot. Robots have had my attention ever since.
I've wanted one of my own from that day on, and she already has a name: Nola. Think what Iron Man talks to, or Cortana riding along with Master Chief — an AI I can actually hold a conversation with, in a humanoid frame like the modern humanoid robots being built today. She's my Guardian Helper: a Guardian Angel that watches over the house, and a helper that takes the everyday work off the list. Not a gadget on a shelf. A friend, the way Johnny 5 was.
“One day I'll build the robot that washes the dishes.”
Me, as a kid at the kitchen sink. I've never stopped meaning it.
And the first chore she takes is the dishes. We didn't have a dishwasher growing up, so when my mom said dishes, that meant me and a full basin, and I hated every minute of it. The Jetsons had a robot in the house; I don't see why the rest of us shouldn't.
That's still the whole idea. I care about time — mine and everybody else's — and I can't stand watching it get spent on work a machine should be doing. Technology is how you take the load off someone's back. Every build gets measured against the same question: does this hand somebody their afternoon back?