From the robots that fail miserably at their jobs to the robots dealing with our literal crap,?? ?? ?? Mashable’s Crappy Robots dives into the complex world of automation — for better or worse or much, much worse.
There are an endless amount of robots. Some of them are great — R2D2, for instance, is a lovely fictional bot from the Star Wars universe. Or, for instance, robots that help perform real-life surgeries are wildly impressive and useful.
But damn if there aren't some crappy robots out there both IRL and in fiction. I've taken the liberty of ranking 13 crappy robots — from least crappy to most crappy — in honor of Mashable's Crappy Robot series. Please enjoy:
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1. Simone Giertz's breakfast machine
Simone Giertz, aka the Queen of Shitty Robots, has formed an entire brand and YouTube channel around making purposefully dumb machines. Naturally, I had to include least one of her creations.
Giertz's breakfast bot is one of her most popular videos. In less than 30 seconds, it does all of its tasks andyet performs horribly.
Of course, Giertz designs her bots to perform crappily, which is why it ranks at the top here. The bot knows it's crappy, and thus is not all that crappy.
2. Autocorrect
Listen, is autocorrect technically a robot? Not really. And is it mostly super helpful? Yes. I am not sure I could text coherent sentences without autocorrect. But that damn thing makes me say duck so frequently and I almost never want to say duck, if you know what I mean.
3. Marty the grocery store robot
The world does not need a googly-eyed grocery store robot that doesn't cleanand simply screeches an alert when there is a problem. Mashable's Nicole Gallucci has proven this definitively.
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4. Siri
How is Siri still so bad? Does it work for anyone? I mean it's not like I'm dying to use it frequently, but it hardly ever works as desired. Although, when I need it, Siri often works when I need a timer for cooking. So it isn't all bad.
5. The robotic barber
In the early days of COVID quarantine, Shane Wighton created an incredibly complex robot to give himself a haircut. The detail and expertise it took to make the machine was truly impressive, but the resulting cut was downright awful. Wighton himself called it "a robotically perfect mullet."
6. A farting cat robot
This weird, sock-like robotic cat basically squirms, wags it tail, blinks, and farts. Oh, and it costs more than 300 bucks. But it is cute, though, so it isn't that crappy.
7. Sophia
The famous (infamous?) A.I.-powered, humanoid robot is kind of neat and very creepy. She could apparently soon be made widely available for folks to purchase as well.
Sophia's empty smiles, monotone voice, and dazed creepy eyes...I just don't like the vibe. Bad vibes all around. Also, what does the thing really do? Sophia is undoubtedly a feat of technology but I still find it crappy.
8. The bot that controls your opponent in NCAA Football
Ok, this is extremely personal to my own pandemic experience, but I've played a lot NCAA Football '13 during quarantine. And while the game is fun as hell, the 'bot that controls your opponent isn't, let's say, as advanced as a modern sports game. Yes, I enjoy beating the hell out of teams, but the 'bot remains crappy nonetheless.
9. The robot calling us all nonstop
How many robocalls do you get per day about your car's insurance? I don't even have a car and I get them constantly. This robot is crappy in its goal — scamming people — but you must admit it's pretty damn good at making annoying calls so it can't be thatcrappy.
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10. Ultron
How many times must we see this plot line? Human creates a robot to save humanity, robot decides to wipe out humanity tosave it. Like come on robot, we don't need to be so literal.
Ultron, from Avengers: Age of Ultron, is just one of the more recent examples of this trope. I'm not an anti-Marvel person — I've watched the movies like nearly every other human — but Ultronjust wasn't my favorite. Personally, I think James Spader, who played Ultron, did a better job as a mysterious, almost admirable villain when he played Robert California in The Office.
11. The robot from Rocky
Paulie's inexplicable robot butler fromRocky IV was clearly a crappy choice for the movie's plot, but remains an unintentionally hilarious nod to the '80s. There are countless bad robots from movies I could've included here but I chose a personal favorite.
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12. Roombas that run over dog poop
Yes, this is another literally crappy robot. But Roombas running over, then spreading, dog poop is unsettling common. It is not a pretty sight. Not pretty at all.
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13. A robot toilet cleaner
Once again, this $350 robot is literally...crappy. It's basically a Roomba for your toilet bowl, but folks who have used it say it doesn't even even work that well. You could almost certainly do a better job with a toilet brush and 30 seconds of free time. So it cleans actual crap for a hefty price but doesn't clean it well? That's the ultimate crappy robot, folks.