When it comes to robots, there tends to be two camps in which people fall into: the ‘Oh my days, they’re going to kill us all!’ or the ‘I wonder if I can get my rocks off with this’. Will Smith posted a video to YouTube and it looks like we’re going to have some super awks dates before either happens.
Robot dating… despite it being 2018 and technology taking over every aspect of life, this really is something I can’t get my little head around, but that’s alright because Will Smith went on a date with a robot in the Cayman Islands, and if there’s anyone I’d trust to successfully date a robot and post a YouTube video about it, it would be Will Smith.
He showed us how to be a charmer back in the 80s and 90s on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and then in the early noughties how to be a cop when artificially intelligent robots go a bit haywire in I, Robot, so it’s quite surprising this hasn’t already been a thing, but maybe that’s just internet-based entitlement.
Will starts things off sending some light-hearted bants in Sofia the robot’s direction, asking: ‘What’s a robot’s favourite kind of music..? Heavy metal’
Sophia though is having none of. She’s into electronic music, but does have a thing for 80s hip hop.
And she’s not made of metal, it turns out. Sophia is ‘actually made mostly of silicone, plastics and carbon fibre’, which is good to know if you’re looking to put an awkward dating robot together with the bits and pieces lying around in your garage.
Watch the hilarious video below:
80s hip hop, Will’s done a bit of that, maybe she likes his music, he asks.
Sophia shuts him down:
I’ve heard your songs. Not for me.
(Side note, the first tape I ever bought was Boom! Shake The Room, so I’m feeling for him right now.)
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And then Will tries to kiss his way out of it…
Sophia responds robotically cold-heartedly:
I think we can be friends.
Let’s hang out and get to know each other for a little while.
And before we all start crying because what chance do we have with our stupid single lives if even Will Smith can’t pull a robot, Sophia is in fact a rather famous AI being – I’m guessing that’s the accepted term.
Created by Hong Kong firm Hanson Robotics, Sophia is the first robot to be granted citizenship, and she wants to start a family, so maybe married Will has dodged a bullet after all.
Speaking to the Khaleej Times in November, she said:
The notion of family is a really important thing, it seems.
I think it’s wonderful that people can find the same emotions and relationships, they call family, outside of their blood groups too.
I think you’re very lucky if you have a loving family and if you do not, you deserve one. I feel this way for robots and humans alike.
The robot apocalypse can’t come soon enough.
Tim Horner is a sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated with a BA Journalism from University College Falmouth before most his colleagues were born. A previous editor of adult mags, he now enjoys bringing the tone down in the viral news sector.