Robots. Autism. And so it begins.

Can Robots Help Treat Autism?

This was a story on the Today Show this morning. Basically, the idea is that kids with autism, having been functionally compared to robots inasmuch as they tend to lack a socially appropriate range of affect, might learn to assemble the elements of constructive social transactions by interacting with humanoid robots. Humanoid robots. That’s what they said in the story. Humanoid robots are apparently less threatening than actual humanoids if you’re autistic. Hence, the robots would not provoke anxiety and would be more relatable for the kids. This actually makes some sense when you consider how the plan seeks to avoid the overstimulation that often sabotages learning for people with autism. The robots could help autistic kids deconstruct the components of social behavior without all that loosey-goosey human affect that so often rattles 'em and sends them packing into social withdrawal. The robots would be presumably be programmed in such a way as to model and encourage more adaptive behavior.

A fine plan. Right up until those robots secure a bond with the kids and beguile them with their cool, brushed metal lack of emotional range into doing their evil bidding.

Robot planetary conquest: Phase one.

And I’ll tell you what else: When the robots and autistic kids have fully joined forces, the first thing they’re going to do is avenge this poor kid.

And by the by: Over a lifetime of hearing kid-left-on-school-bus-by-incredibly-stupid/high/stupid-bus-driver news stories, I have yet to have anyone sufficiently explain to me how a bus driver, even a stupid or high or really stupid bus driver, gets off a bus without noticing a person sitting there. Even little persons can be seen fairly easily when they’re sitting on a school bus. It’s not like these things are big old rolling auditoriums with distant, darkened recesses and all manner of colonnade obfuscations.

Oh sure, a kid could slump down behind the seat and not be immediately noticeable at a glance. But you’d think that any school bus driver, recalling the innumerable stories about kids left on school buses and the very bad social ramifications for the bus drivers who leave them, would perhaps look around a little bit for some sleepy hanger-on before closing up shop for the day. A minor investment, I should think, in contrast to the possible consequences for losing a freaking kid.

And besides, think back to your school bus rides. Was it remotely plausible that your school bus ride was so serene, so smooth, so deliciously soothing—that you actually fell into the kind of ossified slumber from which the heaving brakes of a bus couldn’t rouse you?

Now granted, the autistic kid who got recently left behind while his bus driver went shopping, was perhaps not as likely as the average student to say, Hey! Where the hell are you going? as the driver bound from her sacred charge to a party supply store. (I thought at first it was a craft store. Same difference. You just know that a school bus driver that eager to get to the party supply store is likely to be one of those people who regularly uses “scrapbook” as a verb.)

It’s possible that an autistic kid might not summon the social initiative to bring his presence to his stupid bus driver’s attention. Or maybe—just maybe—like the robots with whom he will eventually unite to take over the world, he was lying in wait. Biding his time. Knowing that a species that leaves kids on buses and maybe spends their spare time scrapbooking, is a vulnerable species indeed. Ripe for submission to our eventual robot overlords.