As another month goes by, another mountain of evidence is collected suggesting that robots are just like us: dumb as hell and bad at everything.
Whether demonstrating martial arts, cutting a rug on the dance floor, or attempting to delight people on the ground with an aerial lightshow, May was another busy month for robots completely eating it.
Here at PC Gamer, we’ve decided to start collecting these mechanical malfunctions. Last month we dutifully noted that robots were violently faceplanting during marathons and pooping NFTs, and this month we’re watching them lose fights to stairs and moonwalk themselves to death. Here are our top five robot sightings for May.
5. Martial parts
Why are we teaching robots how to kick and punch? Humans are an exceedingly violent species and we shouldn’t be outsourcing our short tempers and melee lust to a bunch of tin cans, especially when they seem entirely incapable of finishing the fights they start.
Here’s a robot demonstrating some taekwondon’t (gottem) before encountering an unbeatable opponent: a small step.
robot fail from r/BGMStock
Do they not program robots to have some chill? Instead of calmly figuring out how to get back up, its legs decide it’s a rowboat instead of a robot. It backpedals into the softest wall ever built, instantly dies, then falls on its face. Winner and still undefeated: the step.
4. Wrong way(mo)
I’ve been occasionally impressed with the Waymo driverless taxi, but I’m much more reluctant to ride inside once since the entire fleet had to be recalled because they kept stupidly driving into water. If androids dream of electric sheep, maybe cars dream of being boats?
Unfortunately there’s no video of a Waymo doing its best impressions of a submarine (I mean, there must be video somewhere because those cars are covered in cameras, but Waymo sure hasn’t released it). To make up for that, here’s some idiot in a Cybertruck doing the same thing, thinking his ugly car can swim:
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Can’t blame AI for that one. That’s good old fashioned human stupidity.
3. Drill baby drill
Look, it’s impossible to call Curiosity rover a fail: it’s a robot NASA shot all the way to Mars for a two year mission, and 13 years later it’s still doin’ stuff up there. Mars stuff. But complications can happen when you’re visiting other planets, like when the rover drilled into a 30 pound rock and got stuck. For five whole days.
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To be clear, the drill didn’t get stuck in the rock, the rock got stuck on the drill. It took a whole lotta spinning and turning and shaking and waiting until, at last, the rock finally shook free and fell to the ground, shattering.
I hate to point this out, but this wouldn’t have happened if you sent oil drillers to Mars instead of robots. Get on it, NASA.
2. Drone zone
I wasn’t aware there was a “brightest drone show” Guinness World Record that people were trying to beat, so I’ll just make a small request: stop it. Stop trying to make your drones brighter than everyone else’s drones. There’s already plenty of light pollution, we don’t need more from your noisy flying robots. Anyway, here’s Amazon MGM breaking the record of 10,000 lux (a science word for bright) with a Masters of the Universe drone show.
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I’ll admit it: flying robots making a huge Skeletor face over Los Angeles is a bit rad, but is it really going to convince me to watch the He-Man movie? (Note: I will definitely watch the He-Man movie.) Speaking of drones, here’s a proper fail: watch dozens of drones plummeting into Sydney Harbour during a much less impressive show. Well worth putting on the sound to hear the sad, wet plops of failure. Drones? More like drowns (gottem again).
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1. Android, are you okay?
Along with teaching robots to fight, I don’t get why we’re teaching them to dance. This is just going to culminate in a robot doing “the robot” which would be the least interesting thing a robot could ever do. I’m not that impressed with a robot doing the moonwalk, either, but at least this one made it entertaining by tripping on some stairs and immediately snuffing it. I highly recommend turning the sound on for the full effect.
Robot moonwalks its way to death from r/shittyrobots
I feel like the more these robots completely eat it in public, the less reverence they receive from their handlers. I’ve seen dying robots swarmed by concerned technicians, placed carefully onto stretchers, and one even covered by a coat like a murder victim. This moonwalk bot is just unceremoniously dragged away by its scruff while Billie Jean continues to throb over a disinterested crowd. Our empathy for bots is slowly ebbing away, and I’m cool with that.
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