5 Creepy Ways They're Replacing Humans with Robots
I've covered the aberrant, appalling, amoral abominations that are robots many, many times before. And yet science still keeps making them. This forces me to conclude one of two things: Either I'm mistaken about the extent of my own influence as a pillar of the scientific community, or else scientists are choosing to ignore my warnings because I simply haven't brought forth enough logical data to prove that all robots are hateful automatons that burn our precious babies for fuel. Obviously, I choose to believe the latter, and so I shall now endeavor to correct that mistake by presenting, in a calm and rational matter, this totally factual, peer-reviewed, irrefutable evidence that machines want to steal your face.Talking Robot Mouth
Saya the Teacher Robot
This is Saya, and she's a "teacher robot" from Japan. Man, that really just goes to show you how wide the gap is between our cultures and educational systems. Our own schoolchildren aren't taught this level of existential terror until the first time they see the boat scene from Willy Wonka on Teacher Hangover Movie Day (or, failing that, junior high school dances).The developers say that Saya can express the six basic emotions she needs to interact with children: surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness and sadness.See, that's your first hint that Saya is actually an evil plot to scare children away from literacy so they can't slip messages to each other in the slave mills: She's programmed to display six emotions that help her interact with children, and only one of them is the least bit positive. Hey Replicants, when you tell reporters that your robot reacts to a child's joy with shock, fear, disgust and anger, is it hard to keep from cackling maniacally? I hope so, because that drills-on-steel cacophony that passes for Replicant laughter is one of your precious few giveaways.
Look at those tiny, tiny idiots, poking a robot into a murder-rage.
Hobot
This is the Avicenna/Ibn Sina humanoid robot, designed for Hanson Robotics. It's all rather cutting edge. It has moving eyes with cameras and facial recognition software installed, but while its head and upper body are fully articulated, its legs don't work. And that's just great. Now we can't even trust our bitter, disenfranchised, paraplegic hobos. It's a brilliant move on the robots' part, really. Disabled, bearded homeless guys are everywhere, they're frequently confused about the state of reality and they're always requesting our spare change. By replacing them all with Hobots, the machines have put into place a vast, ubiquitous metal-harvesting network that doesn't even have to try to pass for human. You know what that means? The homeless guy on the corner who's constantly screaming about "unpeople" all around him -- he isn't crazy! We're the ones who are crazy for not listening to him. He's just been trying to warn us of the sinister plot already bearing down on us all. You know what? I'm going to talk to him right now, and listen, really listen, to what he has to s- nope, I've been stabbed. He stabbed me. A lot. Like, really quite a lot of stabs. Goddammit. You win this round, robots.The Three Tenors
And now, what you've all been waiting for: the disembodied cyborg heads of three working-class British blokes who took a wrong turn into the Robot Music Factory (it's sorta like the C+C Music Factory, but with substantially more flesh-repurposing vats). So what did the robots do with their newfound singing ability? Why, they started tonelessly chanting about how they want their freedom, of course. I don't get it. I don't get it, you guys. I mean, I understand how we could permit the rampant cyber-hubris of Roombas and self-parking cars if the robots were still trying to be subtle. If they were still all cute, primitive, blocky, '80s-style machines that had not yet actively displayed a thirst for both autonomy and babymeat, I could understand thinking this "singing" bit was "cute" or "funny." But now the robots are openly admitting that they've killed three unemployed lorry drivers and are using their skinned faces to sing the battle hymn of the impending robo-revolution, and not one person in that museum is kicking over that table full of the blasphemous, tone deaf hate-avatars of industry and organizing an impromptu EMP party? That, sir, I do not and will not ever understand.Robot Babies
"But Brockway," I hear you asking, "if robots are grinding up our babies for fuel, why hasn't anybody noticed? Wouldn't there be a missing-baby epidemic engulfing, at the very least, all of Japan and the fancy parts of Germany?" I'm glad you asked, because the answer is frighteningly simple: Nobody's reporting the missing babies because the only thing robots love more than pulping our infants for fuel is impersonating them. Look: They call this an "animatronic baby mechanism" and say that it was custom built by Chris Clarke for an "anonymous TV series." But if that's true, and I've seen this on TV before, why was I capable of sustaining an erection until now? I'm pretty sure that this horrible gnawing feeling I've got in my gut -- this idea that the whole universe is somehow intrinsically wrong -- isn't just from that gas station sandwich I ate this morning. Oh no, did you think the "baby mechanism" was an isolated incident? Ha ha ha, foolish human, that was just a beta; this is the next generation. And they're sticking with that same flimsy "special effects" excuse, this time supposedly executed by a company called Millennium Fx. But we all know what the robots are really doing: They're refining the design, really trying to nail the inherent, flailing adorableness of our fragile human babies, because our bullshit legal system is biased toward infants. Sure, those last two examples up there may be easily identifiable as crimes against nature by their lack of skin, but rest assured, the robots are working on that little conundrum. And once they get it down and the cops walk in on you dueling with one of these things covered in a convincing simulacrum of human flesh, who's going to look like the bad guy? You. The one knife-fighting a baby.Just like the robots wanted.Oh, I'm being paranoid? They are too working on human flesh babies: That's Diego-san, designed by Kokoro, makers of the Actroid. Diego-san possesses not only the terrifying head of a giant, perpetually enraged baby, but also comes equipped with a fully actuated body, high resolution cameras for eyes, a speaker in the mouth and accelerometers in his ears to help him balance. So wait, why is he so giant? He stands 4 feet 3 inches tall. That's too big. Even if you cover the rest with skin, nobody's going to believe that's a real baby when it comes crawling up from the sewer, dead eyes a-gleaming -- not even for the split second it wants you to hesitate before opening fire. But the robots don't care, because they've actually already seamlessly replaced all of our mewling infants and have now moved on to the next step: weaponizing them.Wait -- giant weaponized robot babies? No. No, that crosses a line. Brockway's been stirring psilocybin extract into his coffee again. That's just delusional. Yeah ... yeah, you're probably right. You've got it all figured out. I mean, it's not like this is a thing that exists or anything:
IT'S NOT LIKE IT HUNGERS FOR THE CHARRED MEAT OF OUR CHILDREN OR ANYTHING.
You can buy Robert's other book, Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead, or follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Or you could just laugh at this article and move on with your life ... which is exactly what a filthy robot would do!
For more from Brockway, check out 5 Real-World Mechs Straight out of Science Fiction and 5 Amazing Abandoned Wastelands ... Within Walking Distance.