RSSIT robot staff imminent
And you thought I was just kidding about the IT staff robots with the big red reboot buttons on their foreheads when I mentioned my dream earlier this week.
An intrepid reader pointed me toward the post "Meet R2: Your robotic co-worker courtesy of NASA, GM" which pretty much perfectly realizes my vision, except for, well, the reboot button. I am sure they will offer that as an option.
The development partnership behind these robots is a bizarre study of opposite ends of the robotic employment spectrum: GM, as you might expect, wants to use them to help test car safety… glorified crash test dummies. NASA, on the other hand, wants to use them as astronauts. Coming up with a design that can withstand the rigors of those two environments certainly suggests some common cause, but what astronaut wants a robot buddy riding shotgun whose twin brother is expected to accomplish no more virtuous feat of navigation than to plow an Aveo into a cinderblock wall?
At any rate, there are many IT staff I have met over the years who I would have wholeheartedly recommended for positions in the crash-test field, so I have no doubt that these robots will successfully make the crossover into the IT industry. And as I suggested, this will be a boon to the CIO. Just imagine, employees you can slap on the forehead with no repercussion from the pesky folks over in the HR department! Who among us has not fantasized of just such a job? It might be enough to get me out of consulting and back behind a desk working for The Man. Until, of course, someone figures out a way to make a CIO robot with a big red reboot button on its forehead. Maybe this trend isn't so terrific after all.
