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Nearly everything I have to say about this episode is a spoiler except: enjoyed the performances; the plot pushed many of my buttons, and not in a good way. Can I rise above my own preconceptions and find something useful in this first of the real Plot Twist episodes? Let’s find out!
So here’s me watching “Kablam!”:
KERBLAM: An intergalactic Amazon thing that can deliver packages by teleport still uses anthropomorphic robots, cardboard cartons, and bubble wrap.
ME: Their customers are sentimental, sentiment sells, I get this as a marketing ploy though it makes no sense in terms of actual efficiency, I’m good
KERBLAM: This moon-sized warehouse also uses conveyor belts and delivery chutes even though, as explained, they can literally teleport goods all over the galaxy in some way that is cost-effective enough that they can cover it by adding on a minor shipping charge and therefore in-plant teleportation of goods oughta be a fucking cinch and for that matter it’s hard to know why a society that can zap its material goods from here to the edge of the galaxy in an instant is still laboriously producing things in factories and shipping them to fulfillment centers to be wrapped and packaged and then teleported out again to the customers
ME: All right maybe that seems a stretch but after all outdated modes of doing things do survive capitalism is not efficient there’s loads of shit we’re still doing that we don’t need to be doing just because some combination of people with money wanted to keep doing them that way burning fossil fuels for instance besides it’s been explained that the presence of humans in this plant at all is a result of political pressure carry on Kerblam I’m really enjoying Graham in this episode
KERBLAM: The Doctor just barged into Judy from HR’s office and told off her and management dude and security hasn’t escorted them off the moon yet
ME: Sorry I couldn’t hear you over the sound of how much I love watching the Doctor chew out middle management
KERBLAM: It turns out Judy from HR and her boss are the real heroes here
ME: WHAT? OMG that is TOTALLY UNREALISTIC
Seriously.
I can’t wait to watch this one with Mrs. Plaidder. I think when she gets to this point of the episode she may literally breathe fire. I get that the whole point is to turn our expectations and preconceptions On Their Heads and that the surprise factor presumes that we go into a plot like this expecting the robots to be evil and knowing that you can never trust HR. Fine. I will try to deal with your plot on its own terms…but it’s gonna hurt me.
My faith in humanity being what it is these days, it’s actually not hard for me to imagine that a semi-sentient automated system might value human life and human happiness more than some “organic” humans do. After all, if Kerblam followed Asimov’s laws of robotics to their logical conclusion, this is what you would expect: robots that resist humans attempting to use them to cause harm. And you can understand how Kerblam might have decided to program the system to value human welfare in order to promote customer satisfaction. But when we get to the point where the system understands human compassion well enough to determine that blowing up Kira is its best bet at protecting humanity by teaching Charlie what it’s like to lose someone…yeah, I guess it’s just hard for my crusty old nearly-half-century organic self to buy that.
I had similar issues with that X-Files reboot episode about automation (I cannot remember the title because it was a string of gibberish): the problem with automation is not the exploitation of robots, and the solution to it is not to “recognize” the humanity of the robots. Robots are not human, and that’s exactly why factories automate. If warehouse robots ever Become Human, they too will be fired and replaced by something else that will never call in sick, ask for a day off, take bathroom breaks, have hopes and dreams, feel discontented, or organize. The problem has never been that we don’t treat things like people. It has always been that we treat people like things.
Oh dear. I am not doing very well at taking this plot on its own terms.
In my defense, that’s partly because its own terms are so contradictory. On the one hand, this episode is trying to call out Amazon (I mean let’s face it…that’s an Amazon warehouse) for treating its human workers like robots. That is essentially what’s happening both at Amazon and at Kerblam, where in response to political pressure and regulatory legislation, they have incorporated humans into the workforce but have them doing work that robots could do better. “Work gives us purpose,” says Kira. “Some work does,” says Ryan. Kerblam’s workplace is dystopian in all the ways in which an Amazon fulfillment center is dystopian–the “group loops,” the constant surveillance–except that the humans are actually not working that hard, regardless of what Ryan later says about not having time to fill out packing slips. But at the same time, the only solution proposed is that Kerblam be lobbied to hire even MORE humans for these rubbish jobs. I suppose I shouldn’t be hard on this episode for not being able to imagine a solution to this quintessentially 21st century predicament (jobs are hell; not having a job is hell; basically everything is hell), seeing as no one is tackling it effectively in the real 21st century either.
Still and all, while the Doctor was trying to talk Charlie out of his murder plan, and blathering about how the technology isn’t the problem but the uses to which humans put it…OK, sure, but are we not actually reaching a point in human history where technology is determining its own uses? Or no…no, I’m wrong. Because the technology is always, even if in indirect and highly unexpected ways, serving the Prime Directive of its human masters, the REAL first law of robots: Make money for your human owners. Sure, if we could stop using technology for THAT purpose, that would solve a lot of problems.
But this episode makes no real attempt to imagine that, or even to represent the fact of this automated company’s human ownership. Instead, it encourages us to place our trust in the “system” itself: to see it as a benevolent and autonomous, wise and well-intentioned steward of its human resources. All this after we saw it deliberately and quite explicitly fridge Kira in hopes of getting Charlie to grow.
So, I mean, points for the fez, points for the Agatha Christie reference, points for Kira’s heartbreakingly naive joy in receiving a present, points for the conveyor belt action sequence; but in the end, I’m not really reconciled to “Kablam.” If that makes me a robophobe, so be it. Well, no, actually, I do not accept the robophobe label. If I don’t want Alexa in my damn house, it’s because of what I’m pretty sure Alexa’s human masters are going to use her to do. I don’t want to be liquidated by Amazon any more than anyone wanted to be liquefied by Charlie’s army of Kablam deliverymen. Though who knows whether that battle can even still be won at this point.