Now, I’ve heard of a lot of inventions where I would stop and think to myself, “who in the world would actually buy this?” In my 22 years of being on this Earth, I have seen the stupidest inventions that have become smash hits such as Silly Bands or fidget spinners. Yet, this article that I am writing about today is not so much stupid and ridiculous, but creepy and terrifying: the Robot Clone.
A Russian startup company called Promobot is selling these robot clones where the buyer has the option to make it look like any human being on the face of the Earth. Their target niche is the world of education and service as Chairman of Promobot Aleksei Luzhakov says “Imagine a replica of Michael Jordan selling basketball uniforms and William Shakespeare reading his own texts in a museum?”
Now, I can get down with that. I think it would actually be really cool to see a robotic Michael Jordan in a museum one day talking about his greatest accomplishments or a robotic Beethoven playing a concert hall in such a way that his music could literally live on forever. However, if our goal here is to perfectly emulate living human beings…well……look at the cover photo again…..does that look like ANY human being ever?
This android looks like it beamed straight from my nightmares. I wouldn’t want to learn Shakespearean history from android William Shakespeare if he’s going to look at me with those soul-less eyes, whilst reciting the monologue from Hamlet.
There are 18 moving parts in the faces of these robots. This allows them to exhibit 600 micro-expressions meaning that their facial expressions will be pretty natural when compared to a human being’s. Promobot’s hope is that this can help remove the barrier between human and machine interaction. Additionally, they hope these robots can replace low-skilled jobs such as call center officers and bankers.
Related: Robots Will Take Our Jobs… And That’s a Good Thing
This is another prime example of how the robots will take over the world one day. In this case, however, you won’t have to worry because Promobot’s robot clone will only have a battery life of about 8 hours. Maybe these robots will make a CES appearance one day. I just….really hope not.
