#161 In which we categorically lay it all to rest

“The robots are here,” Melania Trump has announced. “Our future is no longer science fiction.” 

Her warning is about “first-generation humanoids,” which may mean AI—the ConstiToonies language lab is not clear on this—or maybe it means that MAGA-3-CPO is scuttling around the Residence doing its protocol droid work at the highest national level. This is the Trump Administration after all; anything is possible. 

Per Melania: “Cars now steer themselves through our cities, robots hold steady hands in the operating room, and drones are redefining the future of war.” We’re not really sure where Mrs T is going with this. After all, Mr T seems to be all in on AI as long as it’s good old-fashioned American AI, and we’d hate to think that some sort of technological POTUS/FLOTUS marital dispute has broken out into the open. Then again, AI did perform the audiobook version of Melania’s memoir, cleverly titled Melania, which by the way boasts of no cowriter, which makes us wonder if AI also had a hand in helping her type the thing up in the first place. So how serious are we to take Melania's warning, if that's what it is? Maybe the fact that this is the third Mrs T to write an autobiography diminishes our concern over the whole enterprise. 

Are the robots here? Is our future no longer science fiction? As our staff’s chief book critic—who has never read any of the various Mrs T memoirs and who hopes to go to her grave maintaining that solid record—put it: “I really don't care, do you?”