The Robotic Arm of Oppression

I have seen the future, and I am back to warn the rest of you.

In the future, the world is run by machines. It's very convenient. They don't judge. They don't try to exploit their position in order to make themselves feel better about their dead-end jobs. They'll happily continue to do the same menial tasks all day every day.

Here's the problem, though: people make them. People suck at making things.

I was in a parking garage in San Jose. It was a typical system. You drive in and get a ticket. You eat food. You drive to the exit, show the attendant your ticket, and exchange a small amount of money for freedom. However, in this parking lot, they'd recently replaced the humans with robotic attendants.

That in itself isn't so bad as long as nothing goes wrong. In my case, I turned my ticket over to the machine, and it asked me for money. I gave it a credit card, and it gave some obscure error. I gave it the credit card again and it repeated the error. A button on the machine indicated I might be able to get some sort of assistance if I pressed it, and I did so, but there was no answer.

I moved out of the way to let the guy behind me go, and it allowed him (although it seemed to refuse a couple other people while we were there). Of course, now I was in worse shape, for the machine accepted my ticket, but refused to allow me to exit. You cannot leave without a ticket. You cannot acquire a ticket without having a car over the detector by the dispenser. There were no humans on duty.

Welcome to the future.