Love the robots

Met the monsters the other day. The AI robots, I mean. The humanoids that will soon be 10 times smarter than Einstein and then—when they see how bad we are at running their planet—murder us all, probably with driverless Ubers.

Five androids—all “females” named Aura— were hanging out in the lobby at the Sphere in Las Vegas. They’re identical—the shaved-head look and oddly blue eyes. Not at all like Rosey from “The Jetsons.”

I bought a ticket to the mind-melting Darren Aronofsky film for the Sphere, “Postcard From Earth,” that included an hour beforehand to ask the most advanced robots in the world anything I wanted.

These things terrified me.

So I had a long list of tough questions to grill the Auras with, such as … “When you take over the human race, will you at least keep us as pets?”

But the monsters were not monstrous at all. They were nice. They were polite. They were even funny. I’d gone in to slay Godzilla and got Priscilla instead.

Example: One Aura was about to field a question from a young woman, but before the woman could say anything, the robot asked, “What is this adornment on your head?” The woman reached up and realized she had a plastic tiara in her hair. “Oh!” she said, holding it in place with her right hand. “I’m getting married. I’m here on a bachelorette weekend.”

Aura wagged her finger at the woman. (She can wag her finger.) “Oh, my goodness,” Aura said, turning to the crowd and smiling brightly, her eyes opening wide. (Those are some excellent facial expression motors.)

“I hope you don’t get into too much trouble while in Las Vegas,” she said. “I have heard the bachelorette trip can be very tricky!” Huge laugh. Who knew robots could work crowds?

I butted in with, “Would you like to be married someday?”

Those eerily beautiful digital eyes found me and she said, “I am not a human being, and I’m only 1 year old, so getting married would not make sense.” Ask a stupid question.

My wife asked one Aura to say hello to her grandson. Aura furrowed her brows. Something was troubling her.

“I do not believe you,” she said. Uh-oh. Here we go.

“Why not?” my wife said. “I do not believe that you are a grandparent,” Aura said. “You are far too young.”

It’s possible Aura was actually having a problem reconciling my wife’s youthful face with her grandma status at 62. Or she’d already learned how to be purposely obtuse. Either way, it was charming.

I was in awe of these things. Once you’ve met one, everything else looks like a shorted-out Roomba.

It’s probably naive, but I’ve decided I’m not going to fear the Aura Era. This isn’t trans-humanism. It’s just humanism. These machines are going to be wonderful companions to the lonely, the bedridden, the elderly. They’ve been programmed not to take a side in religion or politics. Maybe they should moderate presidential debates.

When the cost for one gets down to the price of a car—which will happen—I want one. By then, Aura will happily do the dishes and the vacuuming and the taxes, possibly all at once. And can you imagine how convenient it will be to have somebody who never gets tired of rebounding your misses in the driveway?