1955: Robots

2018-02-14T21:08:18Z

Caroz: changed "facetious" to "sarcastic" which I think is the more accurate word here

{{comic
| number = 1955
| date = February 14, 2018
| title = Robots
| image = robots.png
| titletext = Don't be nervous about the robots, be nervous about the people with the resources to build them.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Opened by a Boston Dynamics BOT... Needs to be expanded. Do NOT delete this tag too soon or the bot will kill you}}
This comic refers to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUyU3lKzoio YouTube video] posted 1 day earlier by robotics company [https://www.bostondynamics.com/ Boston Dynamics]. The video shows a 4-legged robot with a roughly canine form approach a door, then stop and 'look' to the side where a 2nd robot appears, which has an articulated arm attachment on top. The 2nd robot sizes up the door, then uses its arm to grasp the handle and open the door. It holds the door open for the first robot, then follows it through the doorway.

The video was extremely popular, receiving over 4 million views in the first day. Many social media comments joked that humanity is doomed, as the robots we are developing will soon become capable enough to rise up and overthrow us. This is a common jest expressed when robots manage to master a task that previously had given them difficulty. It is especially appropriate here, since the ability to open doors is extremely useful when dealing with humans. [[Randall]] has [https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ previously made the point] that a robot uprising would promptly fail because most robots couldn't successfully open doors (or even successfully negotiate thresholds, in some cases). This latest advance seems to specifically undercut that assurance.

Possibly coincidentally, approximately seven weeks before this video and strip, the series "Black Mirror" released an episode entitled "Metalhead". The episode set in a post-apocalyptic world where humans are hunted by robots highly reminiscent of this line of Boston Dynamics robots. Clearly, the concept of these robots becoming a threat isn't unique to XKCD.

After [[Cueball]] sees this video, he reiterates the same joke by saying that we're definitely going to die. [[Megan]], however, offers an alternative view: that due to human nature, in fact it is the ''robots'' which are going to die (since humans tend to respond aggressively to existential threats). Therefore, it is in fact the robots that are in mortal peril from this technological development, not humans.

Taking Megan's point, Cueball sarcastically suggests that humans don't tend to overreact violently to perceived threats, to which Megan replies (equally sarcastically) that she must be thinking of another species.

The title text refers to the Mad Scientist or Evil Genius trope in science fiction where someone builds an army of robots with the intent on using them to take over the world.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting at his desk in an office chair pointing to his laptop while looking back over his shoulder talking to Megan off-panel.]
:Cueball: Did you see this Boston Dynamics robot video?
:Cueball: We're ''definitely'' all gonna die.

:[Megan walks in to the panel towards Cueball who still looks at her, but stops pointing.]
:Megan: You know, it's funny.
:Megan: Humans see a robot open a door, and we all instantly assume we're in mortal peril.

:[Zoom in on the heads of Megan and Cueball, both now looking at the off-panel screen.]
:Megan: So doesn't it make more sense to say the ''robots'' are all gonna die?
:Cueball: Violently overreacting to a perceived threat? That doesn't sound like humans.
:Megan: Yeah, I must be thinking of some other species.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

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1955: Robots