My Son's First Robot Analysis

Amazing, astounding, and astonishing! These three words perfectly describe the rise of artificial intelligence (A.I.). Yet, people fear the technology’s capabilities. To elucidate, some fear A.I. is capable of further dominating human society in areas such as economics and job market. Others fear A.I. has the potential to greatly alter human behavior and socialization. In “The Real Threat Of Artificial Intelligence” by Kai-Fu Lee, he presented an A.I. expert opinion through a question-answer format that illustrates many examples of technology’s influence. On the other hand, the writer of “My Son’s First Robot”, Alexis Madrigal, utilized personal anecdotes and synthesized quotes from researchers to display his comprehension. Thus, these two

Madrigal primarily discussed about his first-hand experience with an A.I. robot. To accomplishes this, he includes various anecdotes relating with his son and the robot alongside the multiple emotions he encountered relating with the robot named “Cosmos” (Madrigal 1). The author’s son, for instance, yelled at his father for depressing the robot by beating him in its own game called “Quick Tap” (Madrigal 1). Another example is when he directly met and learned from the CEO of the robot’s company-Anki-that Cosmos was designed “to summon particular feelings in its owner, and to foster emotional bonds” (Madrigal 2). The journalist’s examples subjectively demonstrate on how the author connects to a his readers. Madrigal felt anger, shock, and worry since he didn’t entertain the idea of robots manipulating children to encourage emotional connections. It creates a sense of protectiveness and concern for parents to know that some A.I. products, although seen as a harmless toy, have latent powers to indirectly influence human nature, especially their children. However; unlike Lee, the journalist didn’t impart on any knowledge on how to solve the emotional bonds humans have with robots. Rather he just stated that “it will be necessary to understand these machines to comprehend the world” (Madrigal 2). Moreover-as opposed to Lee- Madrigal

is manipulating emotional problems in order to emphasize his views through anaphora. Like Lee, he also places anaphora strategically to show the frightening potential in A.I.. The journalist wants readers to comprehend the danger that they are establishing with such electronics in that they are forming emotional bonds with them. He accomplishes this by pointing out to the audience to show the chances of them being more likely to give the robot more attention, which could possibly lessen human empathy and increase hostility towards the people around them. For example, he exclaims that the robot will cause “... his little sister… or I [to] be jealous” (Madrigal 1) and that“Cozmo does something more than that-- is something more than that” (Madrigal 2). It strictly underlines how the A.I. products are molding human emotions and causing the people, in general, to be less practical.

To conclude, Lee and Madrigal establishes awareness of how artificial intelligence is a major conflict in their own respective ways. They essentially harness anaphora for the audience to mainly detail what their concerns are. Yet, their articles exhibit a great degree of deviance in relation with their writing style. It ultimately allows their intended readers to easily differentiate the elements that compose their writing and to visualize on how A.I. is a force to be reckoned with and to know on how to act upon a situation that involves the technology’s