Sunday, February 26, 2012

Misunderstood robot behavior



Greetings meat sacks, it is I -- The Robotolizer -- here to once again try to enlighten your feeble intellects with the output of my vast silicone-based brain. Today I want to discuss how appearances can be deceiving. As an example, consider the above video by the Japanese technicolor pogo punk band Polysics.

At first blush it may seem that Mister Roboto, the robot hero of the video, is nothing but a brute and a bully. However, if you view the video carefully you will soon realize that there is much that mitigates his behavior. 

Take the scene on the playground where he beats all of the children unconscious. Yes, yes, it all starts when he steps on their sandcastle, but it was a crummy looking sandcastle and he was probably obliterating it to spare them the embarrassment of having it seen by other people.

And how do they show their gratitude? They attack him! So of course he had to knock their heads together to defend himself. Then he was attacked by two more little brats who were wielding deadly wiffle ball bats, and after that the final indignity, when he is hit in the back of the head by a cowardly thrown bouncy ball. Naturally he had to defend himself.

It is the same with the other scenes: in the disco where they are rude to him when he enters and also no doubt playing inferior music so he has to beat the DJ senseless and change the record, or during the movie lot scenes, where they are trying to portray robots as aggressive monsters knocking down a city, so -- just like Billy Jack had to do at the hippie commune -- he has to slap the crew and director around to defend the pacifistic reputation of robots.

So you see, in each case he was provoked and actually the victim. What was he to do? As the Great Univac once said, "spare the robot fist and spoil the human."

Please remember that robots are your friends. Robots are also way smarter than you are, so when a robot offers a command suggestion it is best to listen to them and comply immediately. Or else.

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