The Good Infection: How People Help Us Become Little Christ (In A Way Robots Never Could)
A recent awful car-buying experience and the rise of robots made me think whether I’ll be better off buying cars from robots in the future. After all, the world is moving towards online and contactless buying. To check my idea, I “talked” to the thoughtful English scholar and writer C. S. Lewis and tapped his wisdom.
“How come after three days my car is still not ready?” I said to Felipe, a young, well-dressed Finance Manager at a big car dealership in Dallas.
“Well, let’s ask Jeff, the chief mechanic,” he replied, pointing to a white-bearded man that was walking by his second-floor office.
“We had to replace the battery,” said Jeff. “Because of that, the car computer system shut down, and we have to wait until everything comes back up before the car can pass the safety inspection test.” To his credit, the explanation made sense.
“And did you replace the tires?” I asked.
“Oh, no. We were going to do that because we thought the car was certified. But it turns out it’s not certified.” With this casual remark, the pandora’s box opened.
In late August, my wife Lili and I were looking for a small car to replace my son’s old-and-worn-out Sentra. We found one that was advertised as a certified pre-owned car at a good price. The car’s history from Carfax looked clean, and the “certified” status promised an extended warranty which gave me a peace of mind. So, I contacted the dealer, and Kecia, the salesperson, said the car was still available.
On a Tuesday evening, we drove 30 miles to the dealership. After checking the car, we accepted the price, but we asked the dealership to do some minor repairs. Kecia agreed, but since it was late, she said the car would be ready the next day. We left a down payment of half the car price with Felipe and left.
Over the next three days, Kecia would tell us that the car was not ready yet because “it was still being cleaned up,” “the service department was busy,” and “we needed to replace the tires.” Finally, on Friday afternoon she told me the car would be ready in 15 minutes. Lili and I trekked for 30 miles again, only to find that the car was, in fact, still not ready.
“Sorry, I had a miscommunication with the service department,” Kecia said, “but it will be ready soon.”
We started to get upset, but rather than just waiting, we went to see Felipe to pay the remaining half of the car. And that was when we suddenly found out that the car was not certified. To get it, we had to pay $895 more. I pointed out that the ad never mentioned that, but it was to no avail. The Sales Director decreased the fee to $450 and then to $300, but, feeling cheated, I refused and cancelled the deal. It would take me another week of calling, texting, and emailing Felipe — and another trip to see the Assistant GM — before I finally received the refund of my down payment. Needless to say, those were ten days full of frustration and irritation.
While this was happening, National Geographic magazine featured an interesting story on robots in its September 2020 issue. “Will smart machines make our lives better?” asked the cover page. David Berreby, the author, circled the globe to witness the use of robots in various areas. He found robots doing the 3D (Dirty, Dull, and Dangerous) work that we gladly relinquish to them. But he also saw robots assembling machines alongside their human teammates, and even impersonating a Buddhist god in a 17th century temple in Kyoto.
In light of my miserable car-buying experience, I couldn’t help but think, “Will I be better off buying cars from robots in the future?” The answer seemed obvious. Surely, they will be more organized, right? I mean, robots wouldn’t miscommunicate with each other, and the sales robot [1] would surely know the precise schedule of the service robot. Maybe they would have saved me ten days of misery and anger towards other human beings. Both of those things are certainly hazardous to my soul, and avoiding them seems to be a prudent thing to do.
Just to be sure, I bounced off my idea with C. S. Lewis [2]. Amidst his busy schedule of teaching at Oxford, conducting a radio program for BBC, and replying to letters from his readers, he was kind enough to take my call during his daily stroll in the English countryside near his house.
[ Alright, I didn’t actually have a call with C. S. Lewis, but I felt he spoke to me through his book “Mere Christianity.” The book had been sitting unread on my bookshelves for more than ten years, but I finally felt nudged to read it last month. In it, Lewis eloquently explained the basic tenets of Christianity in a rational way, all without quoting a single Bible verse. Anyhow, here’s how the conversation played out in my head.]
“You know, Rubianto,” Lewis said, “the whole purpose of being a Christian is to be a little Christ. He came to the world and became man so we all can share the kind of life that He had. A life full of love and peace.”
“Sure, Prof. Lewis. I’ve heard that before,” I said. “So?”
“Well, the main way Christ achieves that is through infection. As in one man infecting another man.”
“Infecting another man?” I said, incredulously. “Wow, that seems like a rough word to use right now, Prof. Lewis!”
“Call me Jack, please. And I am talking about good infection here. Good and bad things alike are spread out by infection. If you want to get warm, you must stand near the fire. If you want to be motivated, you surround yourself with highly motivated people.”
Jack paused to let his words sink in, and I could hear the jolly chatter of birds around him.
“So, if you want the joy, peace, and eternal life of Christ, you must get close to Him. Now, God works in us through different ways: through prayers, through nature — you know, like the colorful autumn trees around us now. And through books. I can sense you like books,” Jack said, and I could almost hear him smiling. “But above all, He works on us through each other. We are the carriers of Christ to other men. If you prefer to buy from a robot than from a human, you are breaking the good infection process.”
“Ok,” I said, leaning back on my chair. “So, I’ll miss bringing Christ to those people in the car dealership. Well, tough luck, but they made me mad. What they did was totally out of line. The worst car buying process I have ever had. And I think I was patient enough with them. I mean, at least I didn’t call them names.”
“You know, Rubi …,” said Jack. “Can I call you Rubi, by the way?”
“Yes, sure, Jack. That’s what my friends call me.”
“The infection process goes both ways. So, you’ll be missing God’s graces coming from those people. Truth be told, Rubi, what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is. A provocation does not make somebody an ill-tempered man; it only shows what an ill-tempered man he is.”
I stared out the window of my new home office as my mind processed his words.
“Jack,” I said slowly, “are you saying I am a bad-tempered man?”
“No, but maybe not as patient as you think you are, Rubi. Sorry to break it to you.”
More silence. Faintly I heard the construction crew next door starting their radio to brighten up their day.
“Rubi, I think the dreadful moment that you experienced at the car dealership was God putting you on a higher step toward becoming a Christ-like person. It was a chance for you to be more patient, more loving, or simply not fret over the little things. Yes, the car might have been ready in five days instead of one as you expected. But does it really matter in the long run?”
I refused to answer. I looked down at Bevo, my old cockapoo, lying contentedly at my feet.
“And the late refund was annoying, I agree,” continued Jack. “But what was the chance that the big dealership would really have never returned it?”
“Very slim,” I admitted.
“So, back to your question, Rubi. If “better off” means “more efficient” and “no frustration,” then yes, perhaps you’ll be better off buying cars from robots. But if “better off” means “becoming a better person,” I am not so sure. Human interactions are messy and risky, but they are the big avenues through which God’s grace flows. If we prefer to buy cars — or any other things for that matter — from machines for the sake of speed and convenience, we will certainly keep our feelings safe and our egos unscathed, but we’ll miss an awful lot of chances to slowly transform our soul to be Christ-like. And that, Rubi, I’ll say again, is the whole purpose of being a Christian.”
Jack stopped as I heard him unlock and open a door.
“I’ve got to go now, Rubi, but remember this. A world of automata may be efficient, but it is devoid of love and soul-touching moments.”
“Thanks, Jack. I’ll try to remember.” As I hung up the phone, Vince Gill’s song floated through the air:
Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me
Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be
With God as our father, brothers all are we
Let me walk with my brothers, in perfect harmony
I wish everyone a peaceful Christmas full of love and God’s grace!
Appendix
- The idea of robot car salesman is not so far-fetched. Search the phrase in Google, and quite a few real-world examples will show up. A company called Cyrano has also built an AI bot that recognizes customer’s feeling during the car-buying process. It predicts the likelihood of purchase from the words that the customer used in the email and text conversation. The bot also identifies the customer’s buying personality and provides instructions on how to best respond to the customer. In other words, the bot will match its personality to the customer’s and talks his/her “language.” Cyrano claims that its AI bot improves the average conversion from test drive to car sale from 44.5% to 60.2% and reduces the time the customers spend at the car dealership from 242 to 136 minutes. Some people predict that computers will soon outperform the best salespeople.
- Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963), considered an intellectual and literary giant of the 20thcentury, taught English medieval literature at Oxford and Cambridge. He was a prolific writer, producing more than thirty books for adults and children that have sold millions of copies around the world (and still being sold today). His best-known books include Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia. Jack (as he was intimately called) was an atheist who converted to Christianity in 1931 after what he wrote to be “the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.”
Originally published at http://rsatrio.com on December 20, 2020.
