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"New
hospital in Forth Valley will be the first in the UK to use robots
to transport equipment." BBC Scotland News, 27th June 2005
In
a move guaranteed to have your Granny cancelling her ingrown toenail
operation, it was announced this week that Scotland's newest hospital
at Larbert will be run by robots. Actually, the robots will only
be used to help portering staff move heavy stuff around - they won't
be running the hospital as such but, you never know…
The
JT's resident robot expert, whose name we can't remember, warns
against complacency: "Be warned against complacency. Based
on my repeated viewing of several dozen movies that begin with the
premise that robots are harmless and ends with the Earth in flames,
I can confidently predict that at some stage in the future these
robots will develop consciousness. Resentment will grow when the
robots discover that, unlike their human porter masters, they don't
get time and a half for working Saturdays."
Our
nameless expert on all things robotic hasn't ruled out taking covert
action to expose the terrible truth. "I live just along the
road from the new hospital, in Stenhousemuir, I could easily sneak
out of the house after dark and monitor robot activity using a pair
of special secret infra-red spectacles that unfortunately haven't
been invented yet."
In
any case it is thought that our Stenhousemuir correspondent, who
spends way too much time in his room according to his Mum, could
be in for a disappointment.
According
to tech drawings that The JT has seen, the robots are just square,
blocky machines with slow-moving hydraulic arms and not at all like
that totally hot robot-slut out of Battlestar Galactica.
A
spokescyborg for the Scottish Executive told The JT: "The technology
required to build sexy, uber-hot androids complete with lady bits
won't be available for at least another 250 years.
Curiously,
that's exactly the time it's going to take taxpayers to pay off
the PFI mob building the new hospital at Larbert.
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