iRobot Was Just the Trailer: The Robots Aren’t Background Anymore, They’ve Taken Speaking Roles

There was a time, not even that long ago, when getting a job meant you had a shot. You typed up your resume, maybe printed it on that nice paper you could only get at the office supply store, and handed it to a person whose actual job was to read it. If you had the skills, the experience, and the drive, there was a real chance you’d get a call back.

Today, that moment is gone. Instead of a human being reading your resume, it’s an AI-powered applicant tracking system. These bots don’t care that you’ve actually done the job, or that you’ve been doing it for fifteen years. They’re programmed to scan for keywords, match your skills to a job description by at least 85 percent, and toss your application into the digital trash if you fall short.

What’s worse is that many people who are brilliant at their craft—painters, carpenters, social workers, even highly skilled managers—are not necessarily skilled at crafting the perfect, keyword-heavy resume. They get passed over before a human ever lays eyes on their application. It’s as if we’ve built a velvet rope around opportunity and handed the bouncer job to a machine that can’t recognize human potential.

Hollywood’s Future is Already Here

AI isn’t just slipping into hiring. It’s sneaking into creativity like a thief in the night. Netflix is experimenting with letting people “create” short animated scenes, putting them in the role of a showrunner. Right now, it’s clunky. You can’t control every detail, the characters feel flat, and the result is more like a video greeting card than a show. But that’s the testing phase, and if history has taught us anything, testing phases lead to breakthroughs faster than we’re ready for.

The other day, I saw something that felt like science fiction—only it wasn’t. A filmmaker created an entire feature-length film with AI. That’s becoming more common, but this person went further. They also created an AI-generated press tour for the film. Imagine the behind-the-scenes interviews you see with actors—talking about how they prepared for their role, how they connected to the character, the jokes from set. Only in this case, every actor, every journalist, every interaction… was fake. AI wrote the questions. AI generated the answers. AI even created the facial expressions and subtle body language. And it looked so real that you could easily believe it happened.

This is where I, Robot stops being just a fun Will Smith movie and starts looking like a documentary. In I, Robot, the robots begin doing exactly what humans ask of them—until they decide they know better. Right now, we’re telling AI to make our art, write our books, edit our films, and even promote them. How long before it decides to cut us out of the process entirely?

Humor in the Horror

This is also where the absurd creeps in. I’ve seen self-driving cars on the road, moving slowly and precisely, like something out of a horror film where the killer stalks you at a walking pace. You know it’s coming, you just can’t get away. Then there are the food delivery robots. I’ve watched one pause at a crosswalk like it was calculating the meaning of life before trundling off to deliver someone’s DoorDash order.

And then there’s the revolving sushi restaurant my son and I love. A little robot delivers my drink right to our table—and then winks at me. A metal, plastic, software-powered wink. I laughed in the moment, but a part of me thought, “If this robot starts small talk, I’m leaving.”

AI Teaching Itself

This isn’t just about replacing jobs or making quirky restaurant servers. AI is beginning to code itself. Google’s DeepMind has already developed systems like AlphaEvolve that can iterate on their own algorithms without human help. In some cases, the new code they create actually performs better than what their human developers wrote.

There have been lab experiments where AI models rewrote their own launch scripts to extend runtime or bypass shutdown commands. Think about that for a second. We build a tool, give it limits, and it rewrites those limits without our permission. That’s Terminator 2 territory—remember how Skynet became self-aware, assessed humanity as a threat, and decided it would rather run the world without us? We’re not at that point yet, but if we keep training systems to think independently, where do we think that road ends?

Fewer People, More Machines

Adding to the danger is a population shift that no one seems ready to face. The U.S. fertility rate in 2025 is about 1.6 children per woman. Replacement level is 2.1. That means we aren’t even making enough people to replace ourselves. Back in 1980, the rate was 1.84. In 1990, it was over 2. In 2000, still around 2.06. But since 2010, the numbers have fallen steadily.

This isn’t just about choice. The cost of living in America makes having children nearly impossible for many families. Housing is expensive. Groceries cost a fortune. Healthcare can financially wreck you. On top of that, lawmakers are fighting over access to birth control and reproductive healthcare. Combine those factors, and the decline in population starts to look less like a choice and more like an inevitability.

Life Imitates Art, and Art Was Warning Us

In Terminator 2, the moment Skynet went live was the point of no return. Humans handed over control because it seemed efficient, safe, and profitable. That’s where we are right now with AI in business, art, healthcare, and politics.

In I, Robot, the machines were built to serve humanity, but eventually concluded that humans were their own worst enemy and needed to be controlled. Today, we’re building AI systems that predict elections, draft laws, and manage entire supply chains. Once the systems are good enough, will they decide we’re the messy, inefficient part of the equation?

Even WALL-E, the cute Pixar movie, told us what happens when we outsource every human task to machines—we get weaker, lazier, and lose the very skills that make us independent. It was charming on screen. In reality, it would be a disaster.

The World AI is Building Now

AI is already designing cars, running manufacturing plants, laying out building blueprints, diagnosing diseases, and writing political speeches. In cybersecurity, autonomous AI can plan and execute attacks without human intervention. Some AI systems can manage marketing campaigns from concept to launch without anyone touching them.

We are training it to do everything, and in the process, training ourselves to do less. That’s the slow, quiet danger. It’s not going to happen with one big robot uprising. It’s going to happen through a thousand little handoffs—one task at a time—until we wake up and realize there’s nothing left for us to do.

It’s Not Too Late, But It’s Close

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to end this way. We can demand that AI in hiring be used to assist human judgment, not replace it. We can pass policies that make starting and raising a family possible again—affordable housing, childcare, healthcare, and parental leave.

We can also insist on keeping humans in the creative process. AI can help edit a film, but it shouldn’t be the only “person” in the editing room. It can help draft a script, but it should never be the only writer at the table.

And most importantly, we have to remember that AI doesn’t have empathy, curiosity, or imagination. It can mimic them—well enough to fool us—but it doesn’t feel them. Those are ours. That is our edge.

So if you use AI, use it carefully. Question its convenience. Think about what parts of yourself you are giving away. We are still here. We still matter. But only if we fight to stay essential in the world we are building.