SRX-55500
Felix sank into a chair and rubbed his temples, wondering how to break the news to his family. He knew it wouldn’t come as a real surprise given the current state of the world, but that wouldn’t make his situation any easier. Earlier in the day he had been informed that his position as a financial overseer for the shipping of scrap metal would be filled by a robot. This made Felix both an unnecessary expense and a liability. A recent drop in the manufacturing price of robots was creating a spike in automation and leaving thousands of people unemployed and with no hope of winning their jobs back from their metal competitors. Companies had no need to supply insurance or salary for robots, making them a much better investment than humans. The eventual goal was for human labor to become unnecessary as humans were replaced by robots in all areas of work. Unfortunately, until that goal was achieved, robots were creating just as many problems as they solved.
As he contemplated his options, Felix supposed that he was lucky. He had no serious disabilities or major birth defects, so he could pursue a career in an area that required brute physical labor. For a brief period of time, those who did anything physical were left with very solid job security. Since robot programmers had focused much more on mental capacity than physical ability, those whose jobs required physical labor had been safe. Then in 2050 everything began to go downhill. The programmers and scientists called it progress, but for nearly everybody else, it was the beginning of the end.
In 2050 a huge breakthrough had enabled robots to complete physical tasks that in the past had only been possible for humans. Perfectly timed at the halfway point in a century, this was seen as a miracle and sign that life was going to get much better very soon. At first these “laborbots” were expensive enough that their use was limited, but as time went on, costs went down. Currently, human workers were still more financially efficient, but there was a general consensus that soon enough they would overtake human workers and render them useless. Presently, the only fields of work that were really recruiting new workers were the fields that required human qualities in order to be appealing to the public. Essentially the only jobs left were in the entertainment industry and anything that required physical feats (such as sports), as these would have been unimpressive in a robot.
In a way Felix found the new order of society rather ironic. At a glance it would appear that a robotic utopia was approaching at a great speed, yet at the same time thousands of humans were falling behind, slipping into a side of their “brave new world” that bore a much closer resemblance to dystopia. He also sensed an ironic twist in the seeming retrospective inevitability that the entertainment industry would be one of the few left, what with the human race’s obsession with becoming famous.
Felix shook himself out of his musings and wandered into the kitchen in search of something to eliminate his headache. After a few minutes of searching through the chaotic mess of half-filled boxes of food and dirty dishes, he found a headache patch and pressed it to his forehead. With his headache gone he was able to think more clearly. He had allowed the most obvious solution to elude him, not wanting to face the dangers that came with it. Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, he would apply as a robot builder. Not a programmer, which was reserved for those with a higher level of education than Felix possessed, people like his wife, Nina. But Felix could do the actual physical construction.
As the availability of jobs decreased in every other field, the amount of work for robotic construction workers had skyrocketed. To appease those who were unsure of the trustworthiness of robots the one area that had been roped off for robots was their own creation. The essential idea behind this was preventing them from being able to program other robots to do anything that would be detrimental to the human race. While this really just applied to programing, construction had been lumped in as well to appease the extremists.
Despite the appeal of work and a steady salary, Felix knew that robot construction was a grim option because the overabundance of the work made the salaries very low. In addition, the work was extremely dangerous. Things went wrong, machinery malfunctioned, and workers disappeared. They were never hard to replace, so most of the accidents were hidden from anybody who would report them. Felix knew that he could easily be killed or maimed on his first day at work leaving his wife and three young children to fend for themselves. As much as the idea of abandoning his family terrified him, he knew that his other options were virtually nonexistent. He knew that his wife’s salary would not be enough to provide for the family by itself.
The slam of a door shook Felix out of his gloomy ruminations. After a moment of recovery from his surprise at the abrupt crack, Felix felt an overwhelming sense of relief. The idea of letting somebody else try to figure out his situation provided him with a respite that he hadn’t realized he was in desperate need of. He was just beginning to let himself relax when he caught a glimpse of his wife’s face and was struck with a sudden conviction that something had gone badly wrong. His first response was to ask her what was wrong, in hopes that she would reply with a casual “oh, nothing” and soothe his frayed nerves. However Felix was severely unnerved when she shakily replied, “well, nothing…..yet.”
“What, did somebody give Benny a fiber pill to ease his digestion?” Felix shot back, attempting to disguise his discomfort with a feeble stab at humor. He quickly abandoned this strategy when he caught a glimpse of the look that clearly stated that now was absolutely not the time to be making jokes about their youngest son producing copious amounts of fecal matter in his diaper.
“So then what’s the problem?” Felix inquired, internally cringing at his original response.
“Potential problem,” Nina reminded him, “and its robots.”
“Big surprise there” Felix muttered bitterly. Audibly he asked, “So what exactly about robots is causing your potential problem?” He was prepared for bad news but was caught completely off guard when she reported that she might lose her job to an android with a very powerful built-in artificial intelligence system. Felix stood up so fast that his chair fell over. Ignoring it, he began pacing, speechless until he burst out “But how?! That should be impossible! Or illegal! They passed a law about it; how is this not illegal?”
Although Nina seemed a little taken aback by his outburst, she took it in stride and illuminated everything with her reply of “co-robots.”
Felix picked up his chair and sank into it absorbing the implications of Nina’s news. Without further explanation, all he could really do was guess what was happening but he had a pretty good idea. He looked at Nina who sighed and explained everything confirming his suspicions. Her company had decided that half of their workers would be replaced by a type of robot that had been dubbed the SRX-55500. These robots would then be supervised by the remaining humans, leaving his family with a 50% chance of 100% unemployment. Felix placed his fingertips on his forehead, feeling his headache return.
“So how do your chances of staying employed look?”

“Not great. I’m pretty low on their totem pole and most of their employees have been working there a lot longer than me.”

Felix groaned and leaned back in his chair. His headache had returned worse than before.
“Look on the bright side” Nina coaxed, “even if I lose my job, you could make enough to get us through until I can find something else.” Her voice faltered as Felix looked up at her, the news written across his face. “You too, huh?” she said quietly and Felix nodded somberly. “Then all we can really do is hope”
Felix stood up and walked slowly to the kitchen to get another headache patch. As he held it to his brow he heard the soft pinging noise that meant Nina had received a message and his stomach clenched. He trudged back to where Nina sat clutching her message board. “Well?” he whispered, barely able to speak out of nervousness. She showed him the message, confirming his worst fears as it informed him that all of his family was currently unemployed, and Nina’s position as a robot programmer had been filled by the SRX-55500 android.
As Felix stared at the message he closed his eyes, and for the first time in years he broke down and cried.