I recently attended a memorial service for a dear friend. He had been a career military officer, and so I was prepared for a military service, with an honor guard, flag, etc. What I found disturbing, however, were the robotic motions and facial expressions (or lack thereof) of members of the honor guard. They reminded me of mimes — more machine-like than human. Their every move reflected a well-trained deliberation, with not the slightest suggestion of emotion that would — in the real world — attend the death of a friend. I had the sense that I was watching a scene from the Yul Brynner film, “Westworld,” and that if a military officer had ordered them to shoot the mourners, they would have responded as programmed.

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