Melania Trump doesn’t appear at the White House all that often, but when she does, it’s to say something big, and yesterday it was to warn us that “the robots are here!”
As statements from the First Lady go, it has a kind of ominous ring to it. Kind of like “the aliens are here!” Or “My husband has declared himself a god of the sky, emperor of all the fishes under the sea, and ruler of all the beasts that walk the earth.”
Yet rest easy. Melania wasn’t sounding the alarm about some sort of invasion of the bodysnatchers type scenario, she was talking about your friend and ours – Artificial Intelligence!
The BBC reports that the full quote reads, “The robots are here and it is our responsibility to prepare America’s children.”
For what? You might well ask. Never-ending submission and servility to a microchip?
Nope! Let’s allow the wife of Trump to continue.
“Our future is no longer science fiction.” She explained, before adding, “During this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat AI as we would our own children – empowering, but with watchful guidance.”
If you’re confused or concerned about becoming a surrogate mother or father to a computer, don’t be. Melania Trump was addressing a White House AI education task force.
It’s all part of Trump’s 55-year-old wife playing a more active and public role as First Lady.
For a long time now, the former fashion model who was born Melania Knavs in Slovenia has been branded an “enigma” simply because she doesn’t spend as much time as her predecessors making speeches and attending public engagements.
Preferring to spend her time in New York and Florida, Donald Trump’s wife is not seen all that often gracing the hallowed halls of the White House, leading critics to snarl, “Where is Melania?”
The simple answer is she is busy saving humanity from the AI overlords and their robot armies, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
Too complicated in fact to discuss here, but the good news for Melania Trump fans is that the First Lady is beginning to take a far more active role in the state of the country.
Leaving her war on robots to one side, she has played a key role in the Take It Down Act. This piece of legislation criminalises the posting of “intimate images” – real or AI-generated – online without an individual’s consent.
Einav Rabinovitch-Fox is a professor at Case Western Reserve University and a historian who focuses on first ladies. Yes, there is such a thing!
She told the BBC, “First ladies do usually focus on realms that are seen as more feminine, such as children and education. Things that have been historically gendered.
“What is maybe unusual with Melania is her approach.
“It’s not coming from the motherly, feminine side of it, but more from the business side of it.”
Anita McBride, the director of American University’s First Ladies Initiative – and one-time chief of staff to former First Lady Laura Bush, added, “There are outside players that are willing to work with her, that maybe did not want to work with her before.
“Some organisations were reluctant to meet her the first time around. She had a hard time convening roundtables. She did not have a strong structure around her.
“She was born in a country that was under Soviet influence, and has a level of sensitivity that maybe others don’t have.
“She doesn’t have to be present on everything, but wants to be present on issues that are more connected to her interests, and where she can make a difference.
“She does it on her terms. She’s about quality, not quantity. She’s not going to be constrained by how anyone else in the past has done the role.”
Humans! You have been warned!
