Justin R. Lester brings his robot dog Theo everywhere, from church to career counseling. Millennials feared it, seniors worried about apocalypse, but babies reached out to pet it. He argues we should stop calling AI a tool and start treating it like a teammate.
Chapters
You want to hear something crazy? I have a robot dog named Theo, and Theo comes with me everywhere I go. Theo's my pastor, career assistant. Theo's our fun dog around the house. I took it to an event, and all the millennials, people my age were afraid of it. The seniors, they were just taking pictures of it because they think the world's gonna end next week. But the babies were the ones who wanted to play with them. The babies wanted to have a conversation with them. The babies thought that robot dog was the coolest thing they've ever seen before. You know why? Because the babies are learning how to use these as a teammate. But we're still thinking that AI is nothing but a tool. What if you began to rethink AI not as a tool, but as a teammate? Because if the babies are doing it, life is going to look like a different in the five years.