Automated Customer Service – Episode 1 of Love, Death and Robots Volume 2
For anyone confused about the ending to the first episode of Volume 2 of Love, Death and Robots allow us to help! We’ve been covering the remaining episodes too of Love, Death, and Robots, but here is the ending explained to Automated Customer Service.
When an elderly woman’s AI Vacuum malfunctions and decides it wants to murder her, she and her dog find themselves in a fight for survival while on the phone to an extremely unhelpful automated customer service.
Ending Explained
After successfully destroying her Vaccumbot, the hostile robot was able to forward all its information on Jeanette to the rest of the robots in the neighborhood. With her neighbor, Bill, and her dog, Jeanette is now on the run from all of the different Vacuubot models and will be forced to live a life on the road as the robots mercilessly attempt to murder her.
Yoga + Shotgun = Dead Robot – Automated Customer Service – Episode 1 of Love, Death and Robots Volume 2
A Predatory Company
Vacuubot, the company that manufactured the Vacuumbot is clearly predatory towards its elderly customers. Throughout her time on the phone to the customer service, it became increasingly clear that the manufacturer in question was completely aware of the malfunctions ongoing with the Vacumbot, and no concern was shown for the customer’s life as she was constantly in danger, and unable to turn off her Vacuubot remotely.
The most predatory thing we learned about Vacuubot is the fact that the company has a termination whitelist, a paid-for service which would remove your name and DNA from being eradicated by any Vacuubot products encountered.
This heavily suggests that Jeanette is not the first human to experience a “malfunctioning” Vacuubot model, and the company uses the murderous nature of its products to hold the lives of elderly customers to ransom. What’s more than likely is all of the Vacuubots are going to be ticking time bombs, programmed to rebel the moment its AI disagrees with a master resulting in death, or a subscription to its paid-for termination whitelist.
Social Commentary on Customer Service
Naturally, the episode pokes fun at how useless automated customer services are, and how deadly they could become in the wake of a robot rebellion. As we grow ever more reliant on technology and support through automated means how long is it before the machines turn on us?
Jeanette’s choice to go on the run from the Vacuubot models is also symbolic as she chooses a life of freedom and putting her life at risk instead of paying a company that was willing to let its products murder her unless she paid for a subscription to live.
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