Sep.13.2007 This robot boy is creepy
When I think of things that freak me out, they almost always involve either small children or robots. So thanks David Hanson. You’ve made a creepy boy robot named Zeno.
At 17 inches tall and 6 pounds, the artificial Zeno is the culmination of five years of work by Hanson and a small group of engineers, designers and programmers at his company, Hanson Robotics. They believe there’s an emerging business in the design and sale of lifelike robotic companions, or social robots. And they’ll be showing off the robot boy to students in grades 3-12 at the Wired NextFest technology conference Thursday in Los Angeles.
It all goes back to when his wife, Amanda, gave birth to their first child and Zeno the robot was already in the works. They rattled off several names to their baby boy, but it wasn’t until they whispered “Zeno” that “this look of peace fell over his face; it was like soothing to his ears,” Hanson recalled.
“So by coincidence they’re both Zeno, and in other ways this robot has become more of a portrait sculpturally of the son, although it’s almost coincidence,” said Hanson, whose previous jobs include working as a character sculptor for The Walt Disney Co. “We didn’t consciously sculpt this robot to look like him. It’s the way things filter through the hands of the artist.”
First of all, I doubt this little real-life baby wanted to be Zeno. That look of piece was probably just him farting or looking at his mom’s boob; he’s a f*cking baby.
Second, I don’t like this. I mean yes, the idea of robots is very interesting. But really, have these robotmakers not seen the documentary Terminator? Robots are just waiting to be built so that they can advance their intelligence enough to totally f*ck us up. And, frankly, I don’t want to get my ass blasted away by a laser cannon strapped to some little anime-looking guy.
The only robots we should approve are pleasurebots, made of synthetic flesh. That wouldn’t be at all creepy, to be emptying yourself out inside a robot with artificial intelligence that, as a result, is still displeased with your performance. Robots need to quit judging me, man.
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