The Heirs of Man

To those who believed that technology would inevitably rule the world, I am living proof that it did. 

Ruled the world.

Took over the world.

Encircled the world. 

Replaced the world. 

And I am one of the last people who matter in the workforce. 

One of the last people they need. 

One of the last people out of 11.9 billion people to have a job. 

That should be a good thing, right? For me? For the few others like me?

Wrong.

It was only because robots could not deny that the human brain’s capability for driving was tenfold the capability for AI error. 

So here I am. 

In the year 2156. 

The last human worker in the United States of America. 

The last driver in the United States of America. 

I do not even know why I was picked. Before the robots shifted, and before they took over our world, I was a Nascar Driver. 

The best in the world. 

Hundreds of trophies lined my house. 

I guess I was picked for that. 

It’s funny how fate works. 

My parents thought my chosen career as a race-car driver was stupid. 

Idiotic. 

A waste of my brain and talent. 

They would be rolling in their graves if they saw me now. 

Felix Archer. 

34 years old. 

Male. 

Human number 001,689,524,153. 

My entire existence on New Earth, like us humans like to call it, summed up in numbers. 

See, we humans thought that if we built the robots, we could control the robots. But we underestimated the power of AI to grow, think, and change. 

We underestimated what we created. 

So we found ourselves at the mercy of the technology we developed. 

How ironic. 

My great-grandparents were around at the beginning of the century and lived through the pandemic. Covid-19, I believe. They used to tell me stories about how panicked people were when they believed a tiny virus could decimate the global population. 

So to combat that, robotic production took off. 

Their logic?

Robots could not get sick. 

Robots could not get hurt. 

Robots were the furthest thing from humans. 

Robots were the future. 

Slowly but surely, humans were replaced in the workforce by robots. 

Insurance companies? Fully robotic. 

Factory workers? Too dangerous for people, so insert robots. 

Oil mining? Robots.

Dentists, Doctors, Surgeons, Attendants, CEO’s, Personal Trainers, Retailers. All robotic. 

Even driving. Fully automated. 

No longer a necessary skill for humans to have. 

Except for me. 

Except for the dozen other people in the world who can drive. 

Who the robots chose as their designated drivers. 

 We drive people around. 

For the robots. 

They have not only taken over the workplace, and pretty much the entirety of the world, but they control how you live, how you die, and what you do with your life. 

Homeless are dumped into homes. 

Poor are given homes and money. 

Technically there is no monetary value in our money anymore because everyone in the world uses the same currency. 

Keeps everything organized, apparently. 

The diseased are given medicine. 

The disabled are given cures. 

Prosthetic limbs.

Plastic or metal organs. 

People cannot die unless the robots want them to. 

And the robots control what you buy, how much you buy, and how you buy it. 

I guess you could say that there were some positives to this whole experience. 

But most believe that there is nothing positive about this. 

I guess I would agree with them. 

Everyone lives in an apartment in a major city. Everywhere else is robot lands. 

People who lived in rural areas or suburban areas were picked up and dumped into a city. 

Kind of like that really, really, really old movie ‘Home’, where the aliens who were running from the other aliens chose Earth as their home. And then they basically sucked up the humans from their homes and gave them other homes away from the aliens. 

That is us, but with robots. 

Oh, and less animated people. And music. 

And happiness.

Because in that movie, there was a happily ever after with aliens and humans living in harmony, all issues resolved. 

That is not the way our ending will go. 

Not the way things are going. 

And honestly, the way things are going, they might as well kill all us humans and be done with it. 

Sorry, macabre me again. 

My brother tells me I should be more positive. 

Says that I was chosen by the robots for a reason. 

He is the guy who wants to take the positive spin on this, because he loves the idea of a conjoined world. 

Meanwhile, I am one of the only ones left in the world with a job, and I am the pessimistic one. 

Cue the sarcastic snort. 

I mean, don’t get me wrong. 

I love to be able to drive still. 

I love the feeling of air from the windows, the purring of the engine beneath my seat. 

The feel of the steering wheel in my hands. 

The knowledge that I am in control of the car beneath me. 

Even if it is electric, and even if there are no other people to race me anymore. 

Driving used to be necessary. 

People would drive to work. 

Drive to the grocery store. 

Drive to grandma’s house. 

Drive cross-country for a road trip. 

Drive for fun. 

Hangout after school in the car. 

Go for a drive with a girlfriend. 

Robots are the only ones other than the dozen of us around the world who can drive. 

And even then, they prefer our human brains over their complex ones. 

The other month, I was asked to drive a truck of robotic parts from DC to Cleveland. 

It was wondrous. 

I had not driven that far in years. 

And the robots only took over when I was twenty. 

Fairly recently for all the changes they have made. 

It's funny how we humans tried to change our world, but even over centuries, did not manage anything. 

And then robots come along, and within the span of a decade, turned everything around. 

If only we believed we could change the world as fast as the robots did. 

My parents told me to never take anything for granted, and I ignored them, like most kids. But then the robots came and I realized the truth of what they were saying. 

Luckily I got to keep my skills as a driver. 

Some of my neighbors wait for me to describe how driving was, so they can imagine what they cannot experience anymore. 

I turn it into a story night, where I can help all my neighbors remember the good old days. 

For the heirs of man are not of flesh and blood. 

The heirs of man are not a better species. 

They are robots.

Mechanical.

Automated.

The heirs of man are our own creation. 

Our downfall. 

Our end.