La Voz de Galicia – 24 de maio, 2026 →
‘The autonomous robots that move through the streets delivering food, and that I run into all the time when I go to Xan’s studio in Jersey City, don’t have a human shape. Instead, they are like little boxes on four wheels, with endless cameras, and some kind of screen where you can see their robot eyes, blinking and projecting emoticons when you look at them. I don’t really pay much attention to them anymore, since they’ve been operating in the neighborhood for a while; the only thing I do when we cross paths is make sure my dog doesn’t trip over them.
But the other day, at the end of the day, I felt something strange when I realized that one of those robots was lost. In the industrial complex where Xan’s studio is located, it’s normal to take a little while to find the building you’re looking for (it happens to humans too), but while I watched the poor little box going around in circles trying to find the entrance ramp to the reception area on the side of the stairs, I suddenly heard myself speaking to the robot the way I speak to my dog: ‘not that way, little one, it’s behind the wall.’ And I stood there looking at it, and it showed heart-shaped eyes, and I thought I should guide it to the ramp: ‘come on, come on, sweetie, come on,’ I said, waving my hands in front of its cameras, but the poor thing just kept turning round and round …
COur taxi arrived; it was time to head back to Manhattan. I looked at the robot with pity, as if it were an abandoned dog, and I thought about running into the building’s reception to warn them that there was a lost robot, but Xan, ever the calm, practical one, said, ‘It’s a robot, Cris, it’ll find its way.’
I do not know why I felt sad thinking about its fate, but it is curious how quickly we adapt to the world that consumes us…
