Lazy Bots
It is a beautiful Sunday morning, the weather is nice and you have a whole day lying ahead of you. All the possibilities start racing through your head: "I could go for a walk in the park, I could go for a drink of coffee with that friend I haven't seen in a while. My apartment is a mess, I should probably tidy it up a bit, or I could prepare myself for a busy week of uni and start working on some of my assignments. Or... I could simply do none of the above and just have a lazy day in bed. It doesn't matter how fun those productive and social activities sound, the idea of having a lazy day doing nothing always sounds like a better plan. In this blog post, the creatureness aspect I would like to focus on is laziness.
Laziness is also something seen all around the animal kingdom. It is not uncommon for a lot of animals to only exert themselves when looking for food or trying to reproduce. Usually, they spend the rest of their time sleeping or doing nothing. Some animals are rather proficient at this, by doing next to nothing for the better parts of the day. Sloths, the "go-to" example of laziness in animals, usually sleep between 15-18 hours a day. Indeed there is discussion if this could really be considered lazy. Doing nothing for most of the day is an excellent way to conserve energy and is, therefore, a useful survival tactic. Even in human terms, "lazy" implies that one should be doing productive things all the time. If you are not doing anything productive, but procrastinating or doing nothing instead, then you are generally considered to be lazy, which is seen as a bad thing.
Therefore I think it is interesting to explore "lazy" in the context of artificial creatures. Usually, when an artificial creature such as a robot is created, it is done so to fulfil a purpose. Even so-called "useless" artificial creatures have a kind of purpose in a way. For example the useless machine, sort of fur-fills a purpose in that it demonstrates that it is useless. Yet, what about artificial creatures that were made to perform specific tasks, but refrain from doing them simply because they don't feel like it? Or when performing a task they do it reluctantly. Examples of such artificial creatures can be found in popular media. For example, Bender from the television show Futurama, a robot manufactured for bending steel bars in factories. However, in the series, he is portrayed as an arrogant alcoholic often neglecting his work. Or take Marvin, the robot from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. A depressed robot that does perform the tasks he is supposed to, but does so with reluctance and often gives up halfway through if he loses his motivation.
With a little bit of imagination, you could also find a bit of laziness in dysfunctional household appliances or used up gadgets. An old washing machine that only turns on when you've encouraged it with a few friendly thumps or a used dishwasher that barely cleans half of the plates. Maybe PCs that have become slow with age and seem to take all the time in the world to perform basic functions, or cellphones that only bother to charge themselves when held in very specific orientations.
To embody an artificial creature with this form of laziness I think it is important that it should have a purpose. It ought to be doing something, but instead decides not to, or to do it very poorly. A popular bot that people are letting in their houses at the moment is the Roomba. A clever little cleaning bot designed to automatically sweep your floors during the day. The creature I am describing looks quite a lot like the Roomba in a lot of ways. It has a similar round appearance and almost functions just the same. There is however one difference, this creature only cleans when it feels like cleaning. You are able to train it to specific cleaning times and sweeping routes. However, it ignores the cleaning times and instead sleeps in late. By the time it is awake, it slowly starts shuffling the programmed routes. However, It does so with hesitance and usually runs with half of its suction power, taking shortcuts to eventually stop halfway through. After a while it starts up again, slowly moving in a straight line back to the charging station, leaving traces of the crumbs and dust behind that it had just cleaned up. After reprogramming or a bit of encouragement it might actually perform reasonably for a day or two, but before not too long it sinks back into its old sleazy habits.
