Capitalism & Robots

It was about one year ago when I was scrolling through Netflix when an intriguing show had caught my eye. This show is titled Love, Death & Robots and the second season had just recently come on Netflix when I stumbled across it. The first episode of the second season, which is titled Automated Customer Service, is what I am going to be writing about in this critical analysis essay of mine. This episode is only 13 minutes long yet it has some powerful ideologies included in it.

Through the use of tools like semiology, discourse analysis, and critique, I believe that my artifact is taking up and resisting the ideology of capitalism as well as robotic power and dependency. The message that this sends to viewers, even if they are unaware of it, is the negative consequences of capitalism and autonomous robotic dependency and power. This might affect the audience by allowing them to see and consider some of the potential horrors of a robotic world and one that is also driven by capitalism. “I suppose some people may see convenience in the possibility of such automation, but the best dystopian visions are the ones that flow from someone’s idea of utopia, as the logic of the premise moves to entail terrifying results,” writes Caemeron Cain, an executive editor of 25YL. Technology definitely has its pros and cons.

During this particular episode of the show, there is an old lady who lives with her dog and owns a robot vacuum. The robot vacuum begins to malfunction and then attempts to kill the old lady. The old lady calls the customer service, but they are not really any help at all. Luckily, she ends up destroying the robot vacuum but only to find out that every other robot is now out to kill her. The episode ends with her and her neighbor who helped her destroy the robot vacuum on the run being chased by multiple different robots. Tim Miller and David Fincher are the producers who made the show and the second season was originally released on May 14th of 2021. This show, which is a Netflix original, was apparently and intelligently made to intrigue all different kinds of people, by including a variety of genres and themes in their different and unique episodes.

The evidence of my text resisting the ideology of capitalism can be seen in a few different scenes of the episode. One of the best examples, in my personal opinion, occurs near the end of the episode. The elderly woman had finally just destroyed the robot vacuum after it had attempted to kill her and her dog. The automated service never took fault and rather blamed the lady for the robots increasing aggressiveness. The automated customer service then informs her that all of the other robots are now after her, and will not cease chasing her until she is dead. The automated customer service then gives her an option between life or death. Either she pays the company money and the robots will stop chasing her and let her live, or she chooses to not pay the company money and the robots continue to chase her down to her death. “Automation isn’t the real villain of ‘Automated Customer Service,’ however - the real threat lies in the other part of the title, which the voice on the other end of the line (Ben Giroux) that is supposed to help Jeanette with her problem but instead becomes insistent that she sacrifice her dog to the killing machine (to distract it),” writes Caemeron Cain, an executive editor of 25YL. When first watching the episode it may seem as if the robot vacuum is the villain of the show. However, capitalism is the real issue at play here.

There is a scene near the beginning of the show that resists the ideology of robotic power and dependency. In the elderly woman's house there is a picture of her and her dog that sits on top of a table. The robot vacuum is currently on and going around the house doing its job. You can already tell that the robot vacuum is smart because not only does it vacuum but it folds clothes and cleans other things as well. The picture frame is sitting in the middle of the table that it is on and the elderly woman walks by and moves it more towards the right side of the table. The robot vacuum comes up behind her and moves the picture frame back to the center of the table. She looks at the robot vacuum and then moves the picture to the right again. The robot vacuum repeats its action and puts it back in the center. She then looks at the robot with a somewhat mad face and says “what is up with you”? The elderly woman and the robot vacuum are now officially in a conflict. For the robot vacuum, the war has just begun.“Though, perhaps the real fear here is these robots, who have mapped your home, know your habits, being equipped with security defense mechanisms with you having no real means to stop them,” wrote Amari, a woman who published her review on a blogging website. The vacuum robot's repetition of placing the picture frame back in the center goes to show that robots have a set agenda and will attempt to accomplish it even if we disagree with it. Even though the elderly woman purchased the vacuum robot in the first place it is still exerting its own power and will over hers.

There are a few other aspects of this episode that emphasize robotic dependency. The beginning of this episode starts off by showing an elderly male character who is hanging out in the pool. There is a robot in the pool that floats over to him and brings him a beverage. Next to the man is an elderly woman who is in the pool with her arms resting outside of the pool while a robot is giving her a massage. It then goes on to show elderly characters playing VR and also shows other forms of robots. They have robots that do their hair at the salon and they even have robots that walk the dogs and pick up their poop. All of the characters that they show are elderly and have big heads compared to their bodies. I believe that this goes to show that the characters basically do no labor for themselves and instead solely depend on the robots who run pretty much every aspect of their lives. With no physical labor they are weak and skinny which is why they have big heads in order to emphasize their weak body. None of the characters are working, in fact, they are hardly moving around at all. The main characters are the only two that are shown moving around and they are the two that are hunted by the robots at the end of the episode.

I think that the main effect that my text, Love, Death & Robots Vol. 2 Episode 1: Automated Customer Service, may have on audience members is that they may end up realizing some of the true horrors and negative impacts of robotic power and dependency in a capitalistic world. In fact, this was the exact effect that it had on myself. Personally, I think that this artifact helped shape me as well as my worldview, by further realizing that we as human beings should not be so dependent on technologies, especially robots (for in the potential future). The critical analysis of this text that was written by Caemeron Cain, an executive editor of 25YL, had changed how I had originally seen my artifact. When first watching the episode I focused more on the robots and the robot vacuum. After reading Caemeron Cain’s critical analysis of this text was when I really was able to fully consider and think about the capitalism aspect of the episode. Of course I had noticed it but just not to the extent that Caemeron Cain did in his critical analysis. Hopefully my analysis can do the same for you all as well.