What Are People Bashing When They Bash A Robot?
Just a machine? Capitalist overlords? Their own feelings? It's complicated.

I’m traveling this week so this is a rework/update of a post I wrote when the blog was young, in 2021. A few readers may recognize it, but the vast majority of subscribers and followers joined me well after the first version was written. And, anyway, I’ve evolved a bit on this topic (it would be a bad sign if I hadn’t!).
A few years ago, Ayanna Howard saw a visiting schoolchild poke her robot in its “eye.” She wasn't having it. She told the kid robots could "come to your house in the middle of the night while you're sleeping in order to punish you --- because they'll remember how bad you were to them!" (The anecdote is in her fine book, Sex Race and Robots, where she adds "I got a little bit of satisfaction at the look of fear that appeared on his face.")
That's pretty hard core, but most roboticists I've met would get it. It's natural to want to catch your fragile and expe…