This Week in the Mercury
Thursday, May 17, 2012
?!?!? / Science! Behold: Robutt
Posted by Bobby Roberts on Thu, May 17, 2012 at 12:29 PM
Oh, Humankind. Never change.
That is SHIRI. Shiri is a buttocks humanoid robot.
(I'll give you a second to parse that sentence)
SHIRI is a buttocks humanoid robot, built to express various emotions with organic movement of artificial muscles. Emotions programmed to be expressed by SHIRI include "tension," "twitch," and "protrusion," of which the last two aren't actually emotions, I'm pretty sure.
My colleague and Senior Editor, Erik Henriksen, expresses his thoughts on the matter thusly:
"It makes me uncomfortable. It seems like there are better ways to go about expressing emotion than through the butt."
Humanity thinks otherwise, Mr. Henriksen. As does YouTube commenter "pussylover1022", who was rewarded with multiple thumb-ups from fellow viewers for expressing this query:
Indeed, a very important question, often asked of previous technological leaps forward in the field of communication, including the letterpress, the telephone, and the Xbox 360.
I am currently imagining how Battlestar Galactica would have played out if SHIRI replaced the Cylons as the series' main antagonists. It is a fascinating mental exercise.
Anyway, yeah - Emotional Robot Butts. Coming to a technological uprising near you. Know your enemy.
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