If you have never worried about robots stealing your job before now, this might be the time to start panicking just a little. In both Manchester and London, “hologram” agents have begun reciting security rules to passengers in an attempt by the airports to streamline check-in lines.
| BBC Report: Hologram Staff Have Arrived at UK Airports | |
Although they look like uncanny futuristic holograms, they’re actually rear projectionimages. They are propped up in strategic airport locations to provide vital information about carry-on items and security checkpoint instructions, freeing up actual employees to walk around briskly and pretend to be too busy to answer your questions.
| Manchester Airport Terminal 1 Pre Security Holograms in action | |
According to airport officials, passengers pay more attention to these virtual employeesthan to printed signs. Already, many passengers have seemed baffled by the airports’ new additions, going so far as to try talking to the projections or attempting to put their hands through them to see if they are holograms. Although they tend to weird people out a bit, we’re digging the ultra-futuristic solution to a common airport problem. If only they would program the projections to end their speeches with “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi – you’re my only hope.”
