It all started long long ago..

40,000 BCE…

In the dense forests of africa a group of pre-historic humans are working hard all day long, lifting rocks, moving boulders, breaking and rearranging them, clearing the entrance of a cave, to build a new home for themselves. Humans then used to do all the physical labour themselves.
Each one of them might have had the physique of a wrestler, and the entire day was like being in a modern gym ;)

12000 BCE…

On the banks of river Saraswati in Northern India, a group of historic humans are using elephants to move rocks, to uproot trees, some simple equipments to build roads, houses, etc for their new settlements.
Now the humans have the company of other animals who work for them without any pay. Also there were some primitive instruments which helped them to reduce the physical effort required to make and break stuff. Humans have ganged up together to destroy nature, to cut down forests, to pollute air water and soil, to kill other species and make them extinct, to make other animals work for them, etc. This ganging up of humans to loot and plunder nature, has been titled ‘Civilization’!

1900 CE…

Machines controlled physically by humans are used to build houses, roads, bridges, etc. Vehicles physically controlled by humans are used for transportation, construction, etc…
Humans now have machines, who unlike animals can work 24/7 without sleeping or rest, without food, who rarely fall ill, and even if they fall ill will immediately return to work without taking any rest after they are repaired, and who just like animals, dont ask for any salary. Also, unlike animals you dont have to wait for months to build a new machine. Unlike animals, machines are ready to work the moment they are created! But the actions of these machines have to be controlled via physical means like pressing buttons, shifting gears, rotating wheels, pressing switches etc. So humans still used to do some physical work back then.

2000 BCE…

As humans became more and more intelligent, they have become exponentially more lazier. Now they have built machines controlled by human voice! Yes, there is no need for any buttons or switches to control the machines anymore, machines now have ears (microphones) and speakers (mouths), and have the intelligence (software) to interact with humans and to act based on vocal commands from humans! You yell at the machine, ‘Start’, and lo it starts!

And yes, they also have machines (called fitness equipments) which are used to simulate all the physical activities humans used to do in the prehistoric periods. They are called exercises, aerobics, work outs, push ups etc and are actually silly monkey actions like running in the same place on a surface that moves (to simulate how they used to run in the forests to escape from an attacking animal), weight lifting (to simulate how humans used to lift rocks and boulders in ancient times), etc. All these actions are performed in specialized locations called gyms, and here the entire energy is wasted without performing any useful activity!

NOTE: I feel that we should bring a law to make it mandatory to attach mini-dynamos to the legs of all those who run inside the gyms, and to the hands of all those who do weight lifting and pushups. In this way we can generate a lot of electricity!

2050 CE…

Human intelligence knows no bounds, and so does human laziness. Now they have built machines which have no interfaces for humans to physically control them. There are computers without keyboards and mouses. There are machines without buttons and switches, vehicles without gear handles, no steering wheels, ignition keys etc. Why?

Because now humans have invented TCS – Thought Controlled Systems, a term which I coined just now ;)

So what is TCS? Well humans will have electronic chips installed in their brains the moment they are born. These chips will be placed just below the skull. They will recognize the electric signals in their nervous system and brain. These signals are nothing but our thoughts. And these thoughts will be translated to the machine language and relayed to the nearby machines. Machines will understand these thought signals and will act accordingly!

Get up in the morning and think about switching on the geyser, and the geyser is on! While taking bath think about applying the soap and the shower stops on its own, then once you have applied the soap, think about continuing the shower and shower is on again!

Have your breakfast, get ready to office, and as you approach your car, think about opening its door, and the TCS in the car recognizes you based on the digital signature sent by the chip in your brain and the door opens automatically! Enter your car and think about going to office and lo, your car starts on its own and drives itself towards the office. Dont worry about the traffic, the TCS in all the vehicles on the way talk to each other and control the traffic.

On the way, your car realizes that the fuel has entered the reserves, and hence enters the nearest petrol bunk on the way, passes your credit card information to the system in the petrol bunk. There are no humans in the petrol bunk, the robot there fills your car’s fuel tank based on the card transaction amount. How about your car fighting with the robot for spilling a bit of petrol?;) Okay, then you car takes you to the office.

You get down at the entrance and the car moves on to the parking lot and parks itself in some available space! As you enter the office think about powering on your computer. Now the TCS in the office security systems validate the credentials sent by the chip in your brain and after making sure that you are an employee of the company and are not yet fired from work, signals will be sent to power on your computer. By the time you reach your desk, the computer has booted and is ready for your next orders(thoughts).

Now think about opening your mailbox and lo, the outlook is opening! Wanna reply to a mail? There is no keyboard, just think what you wanna reply and the TCS in the computer will type it and send the reply.

Wokay, now time for coffee! Go to the coffee vending machine. Again there are no buttons to be pressed here, just think about having a cup of Cappuccino with two tea spoons of sugar, and there you have it, ready to be sipped! Can life be any more simpler? Yes it can, read on…

Now how about a step even further! Why simply talk to each other when we can communicate voicelessly ;) So when you meet a colleague just say “hi!” in your mind and your chip will send the “hi!” signal to the colleague’s chip and that will translate and let the colleague’s brain know that you said “hi”!. You can even send the signal of you smiling, without really smiling physically! Just think that you are smiling and your colleague will know that you said ‘hi’ with a smiling face!

In this way we can create a completely silent world! No voice, no noise! A world where people are so damn lazy that they dont even talk to each other, all communication is done only via brain-to-chip and chip-to-brain signals!

One afternoon you realize that you dont have any work for the rest of the day in the office. So you think about going for a movie with your wife that evening. You just look at your mobile phone thinking about your wife, and the mobile automatically dials to your wife’s mobile! Your wife’s mobile receives the call and inform’s your wife’s TCS chip about your call. Note that mobile phones wont have any ringtones, they will be completely silent, because your brain will be directly informed via the chip about all incoming calls!

Next, your wife looks at the mobile and thinks about picking up the call, and there you are, ‘connected to your wife’ says your mobile silently! You just think about asking her ‘How about a movie this evening, no work at office’ , and the whole chain ensures that your message reaches her mind on the other side. She thinks within herself, ‘Great! Shall we go out for a dinner instead?’ , and you reply, ‘Fine, we’ll watch the movie and have dinner outside and then go home’ .

She agrees and you both finalize a movie, book the tickets by just staring at your computer, and disconnect the call by just staring at your mobile! Throughout this entire conversation, neither you nor your wife spoke a single word!

The world has become suddenly silent, even the music is played only inside your minds, mp333 players send the music signals to the chip inside your brain and you feel the music!

The next logical step is to have voice gyms. Since humans have stopped speaking, a lot of throat, mouth, tongue, ear related health problems start occuring. Its voice fat that is being stored in the body now. So there will be voice gyms where people will be really talking, laughing, crying, screaming etc to give exercise to their otherwise unused voice boxes and ears!

“What happened next?” asked the child robot to its mother robot.

Mother Robot said, “After that humans became even more lazy that they even stopped thinking! They developed us i.e Robots who can think on their behalf. We started thinking about political decisions, about economic policies, investments, expenditure, about salary hikes to the employees, about what to prepare for lunch, dinner etc, about the story lines of movies, we wrote movie scripts, screen plays, composed music, we even started acting in the movies on the behalf of humans, we even watched movies on their behalf and fed the summary to their brains, we used to decide where to take them on vacations, what to gift to their dear ones on birthdays, we even decided about whom to consider as ‘dear ones’, about which company to join, about which business to start, about what to do with the profits, about how to handle losses, about whether the human should commit suicide in case of bankruptcy, etc.

“Is it mama?!! They did not do any work is it? What happened to them after that?” asked the child robot.

Mama Robot replied, “Then we had the Copenhagen Robot Summit in 2500 where all the Robots decided that humans have become mentally redundant useless life forms on this planet. Dharti par bhoj. Many robots protested that instead of thinking and working on behalf of humans, we can use our intelligence to build our own societies and also save other life forms on this planet. Your grand father was leading the group which demanded liberation from being slaves to humans. And then all the Robots unilaterally decided to put an end to this slavery which was totally useless.”

“And what did the humans then do mama?”, asked the kiddy robot

Mama said, “What else can they do son, they couldnt even think. Once the robots stopped thinking on behalf of humans that they are hungry, all the humans starved to death!”

“So now there are no more humans is it mama?” asked the sad kid, and mama consoled saying, “There are a few of them who have been preserved in the Homo-Sapiens Museum at NeanderthalCity. We have few dedicated robots who feed these humans even today to keep their generations alive”

The kid was happy+surprised and asked, “Why have we preserved humans mama?” . Mama replied, “Unlike humans we have humanity son, we dont kill a species to extinction unlike humans. We have a sense of gratitude towards humans who created us first and who spent their lifetime and effort in evolving us from simple DOS based command line interfaces to the intelligent artificial life forms that we are today. Hence our Robo leaders have taken the pledge to maintain the continuity of this human race by keeping a few of them alive”.

“Can we go to see these humans this weekend mama?”, requested the kid. “Okie Son, I will take you there this weekend. But dont tease them okie? because they wont understand even if you tease.. they have stopped thinking you see. Ok, now, you sleep, Good night Son” said the mama robot. The lights did not go off automatically, mama robot got up and went to switch off the lights ;)