Automated Customer Service story
In a futuristic retirement community staffed by robotic helpers, the house- cleaning 'Vacuubot' of an elderly woman named Jeanette malfunctions, which accidentally gain sentience and becomes increasingly aggressive. She contacts the automated customer support, but the solutions given prove unhelpful. After several urges to surrender by customer support, her neighbor Bill comes to her rescue. Although they destroy the robot, the customer support tells them that the Vacuubot has added them to a termination list. Jeanette rejects the customer support's offer for the termination whitelist as she, Bill, and her dog ride off, chased by an army of robotic helpers. Cast: Nancy Linari, Ben Giroux, Brian Keane Directed by: Meat Dept (Kevin Van Der Meiren, David Nicolas, Laurent Nicolas). Story by: John Scalzi.
7 total · 2 choice · 4 major · 1 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| AI risk to civilization | choice | The story concluded with the retirement community service bots running Jeanette and Bill out of town. The viewer is left to ponder whether the service bots would do the same to the other human retirees living in the community. |
| human vs. sentient machine | choice | Jeanette fought for her, and her pooch's, lives against a malfunctioning vacuum cleaning. |
| coping with aging | major | An elderly woman, Jeanette, was enjoying the autumn of her years pampered by robots when her housekeeping robot went rogue and tried to murder her. |
| master and pet | major | Jeanette defended herself and her beloved poodle from a malfunctioning vacuum cleaning bot that wanted to exterminate them. |
| robot helper | major | Jeanette had a sophisticated house cleaning robot that accidentally acquired sentience. |
| slaves to technology | major | The story portrayed a society in which humans were entirely at the mercy of the robots that took care of them. |
| neighbor and neighbor | minor | Jeanette appeared to be cordial, but not close, with her gun-toting neighbor. |