Reports have circulated that Lowe’s Hardware stores will employ robot assistants to help shoppers. On Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver offered Lowe’s competitors Home Depot a sample ad campaign stressing the most important function of hardware store employees: keeping couples from bickering.
Parks and Recreation’s Nick Offerman stars as a Home Depot employee who helps a married couple—star of Bob’s Burgers and Archer H. Jon Benjamin, and Sarah Baker, best known for the speech about “fat girls” on Louie—by diverting their attention away from their marital problems and towards the important things in life, like floor plants, copper sinks and paint swatches.
Of course, the real problem with robot retail employees is that humans will lose jobs, but a potential spike in the divorce rate? That's cause for concern as well.