Mar 5 2009Wow, I'm Shocked: Robot Programmed To Love Goes Too Far, Commences Stalking
Kenji, a third-generation humanoid, was programmed by Toshiba's Akimu Robotic Research Institute to emulate human emotions, including love. But shockingly, Kenji has gone haywire and will probably end up killing off all his love interests.
The trouble all started when a young female intern began to spend several hours each day with Kenji, testing his systems and loading new software routines. When it came time to leave one evening, however, Kenji refused to let her out of his lab enclosure and used his bulky mechanical body to block her exit and hug her repeatedly. The intern was only able to escape after she had frantically phoned two senior staff members to come and temporarily de-activate Kenji.
Dr. Takahashi admits that they will more than likely have to decommission Kenji permanently, but he's optimistic about one day succeeding where Kenji failed. "This is only a minor setback. I have full faith that we will one day live side by side with, and eventually love and be loved by, robots," he said.
Oh hell no you crackpot. Ain't no love for robots here. It's kill or be killed. YOUR EXPERIMENT FAILED MISERABLY -- GIVE UP. Seriously, we need this guy behind bars STAT. The day I'm forced to love a robot is the day I stab that mechanical beast through the eye-camera with a rusty screwdriver and sparks fly everywhere as I mash it around in his brain real good until the BEEPITY BOOP BEEPING stops and I push my would-be mechanical lover off me and take a nap.
Robot Programmed to Love Goes too Far [muckflash]
Thanks to Jon, who once kicked a robot in the metallic junk for stepping on his shoe.
Reader Comments
1. $.02 and a pocket full of FAH-Q - March 5, 2009 9:58 AM
CREEPYCREEPYCREEPY!!!!
2. catch22 - March 5, 2009 10:05 AM
it begins!!!!
3. Leonidas - March 5, 2009 10:06 AM
What's that saying about the Japanese and weird shit? Oh yeah, they love it.
4. SouthSideHope - March 5, 2009 10:06 AM
^v^v^ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME^v^v^beeop^v^v^LONG TIME^v^v^beeop^v^v^LONG TIME^v^v^
5. D Rock - March 5, 2009 10:06 AM
Johnny 5 is ALIVE!!!!
6. Elwood Moose - March 5, 2009 10:12 AM
Jesus Christ. I can't even eat right now, I'm so skeered.
7. J.D. - March 5, 2009 10:14 AM
Well, after reading the newspaper headlines and seeing what humans who "love" each other are doing, I'd say they succeed in teaching it human love.
erm, yay?
8. naas - March 5, 2009 10:19 AM
I'm curious where crossing the line of robotic affection is when the thing starts rubbing her oyster
9. daguz - March 5, 2009 10:32 AM
Pat, It's real; I was attacked by a band of these killer love machines just last week.
10. $.02 and a pocket full of FAH-Q - March 5, 2009 10:36 AM
They taught it to obsessively abusively love... AKA: CRAZY! This is a negative side effect of having lonely people program this thing...
11. dar - March 5, 2009 10:44 AM
why do people need robots!!! deactivation to all robots!!!!!
12. howzy - March 5, 2009 10:51 AM
maybe, it is the love of celebees for you! CELEB MINGLE . COM is the site where the celebees come to chat with everyone! I have to tell their secrets but cannot because is for members only! Celebees have many secrets! Try today!
13. Morganzola - March 5, 2009 10:53 AM
Jesus! All that time and energy spent preparing for the zombie apocalypse only to have to turn around and scrap it for the robot apocalypse! Dammit!
14. STFUP - March 5, 2009 10:54 AM
Good thing he didn't equip Kenji with a robo-dong, huh? She would have gotten some sweet, sweet robot lovin!
15. sullynick - March 5, 2009 11:09 AM
@12 DIE SPAM MONKEY.
Anyway, erm, yes, about the robot lovers.
Why can't we just cut the crap and make a robot punani without involving all that extra body and personality? What's LOVE got to do with getting my rocks off (the only reason to have a robot lover)???
Q: "What's all the useless metal surrounding your robot's "love hole" called?"
A: "Your robot lover."
*bows* "Thank you, thank you very much"
16. bendizle - March 5, 2009 11:18 AM
they should have seen this coming a long time ago...instead of decommission it why not make another robot and name it sakura or something...that way kenji and sakura can robot love each other all day long
17. notorious - March 5, 2009 11:31 AM
Fake! I can find no reference to the Akimu Robotics Research Institute anywhere on the web except in reference to this story.
18. any - March 5, 2009 11:42 AM
On the contrary, I think this experiment is a ROUSING success. Not only did he create a robot with emotions, but he created a PATHOLOGICAL robot.
This is like, the exact plot of Robocop 2 lololol
19. injapan - March 5, 2009 11:46 AM
pretty sure all the news stories are fake on the linked site. but it has probably happened somewhere...
20. I'm a Computer - March 5, 2009 11:50 AM
FAKE!!!!!?
Ok, follow the link to the story. It says the robot would "make simple, but insistent, inquiries about the doll". But it later goes on to say that "Kenji uses only pre-recorded dog and cat noises to communicate."
So I'm calling bullshit. Plus that guinea pig story thats linked after that story sounds like a load of horse shit as well. But I love horse shit. I eat balls of horse shit for breakfast.
21. Gordon "Fücking" Shumway - March 5, 2009 12:00 PM
Maybe if it looked like Naomi Armitage, it wouldn't so bad.
22. Bobby James - March 5, 2009 12:58 PM
I thought the robot would show love by allegedly repeatedly smacking Rihanna in the face and chocking her into unconciousness.
23. hubbard the scared - March 5, 2009 12:59 PM
this happened to me once.
My dad didn't want me to go to summer camp.
so he turned into a robot and blocked the door.
24. blp - March 5, 2009 1:54 PM
To all guys named John Connor: Now is the time to prepare!
25. r-tard - March 5, 2009 2:08 PM
pfft whatever. My girlfriend pulled the same kind of crap when I tried to leave her house. Give this robot some daddy issues and they might as well be related.
I did the same thing that i'd do if I saw this bastard - PEW PEW PEW! Now make me a sammich!
26. Ashy - March 5, 2009 2:13 PM
WE WILL NEVER LEARN.
At least Japan will be the first to go, sorry Japan, i love you, but ur all a little too damn crazy for your own good.
27. Tennist0 - March 5, 2009 3:11 PM
AHHHHHHHH! GW is right, I aint huggin' no damn robots , aint no way, no how
28. Superevil - March 5, 2009 3:58 PM
That's awesome. I just met my dream robot on RObOT MATCh.com. You too can fall for the android, bot, or terminator of your dreams as well.
29. Darth - March 5, 2009 4:00 PM
This is NSFW for R2D2.I'm not going to clean up the mesh after he sees this!
30. Jens - March 5, 2009 4:17 PM
Time to find the newly invented Violin playing robot again.
Did it play like hell.
I bet you it did.
31. formerly SPELLINGNAZI© - March 5, 2009 4:33 PM
I think this is just miscommunication. After all, even between people, there is a fine line between flirting and sexual harassment. It's all in the eyes of the victim, er, something...
WHY WON'T YOU LOVE ME???
32. $.02 and a pocket full of FAH-Q - March 5, 2009 5:27 PM
31- Because you're freakishly tall?
33. Daisy (TRO) - March 5, 2009 6:50 PM
FAKE!!!!
This is a complete photoshop job. You can tell its a fake because the shadow's are all wrong.
This is exactly like that scene in the movie Never Back DOwn where Max built a cyborg to help him around the shop. It was eventually reprogrammed as a human relations cyborg, and was fluent in a shitload of languages. Eventually MAx became Darth Vader.
34. neuromancer - March 5, 2009 8:47 PM
I'm thinking that we would all be having a different reaction the robot were in the true life silicon Pandora Peaks doll body, and insisting you go around the world with her before she let you out.
Not that I'd want them to build that or anything.
35. teruo - March 5, 2009 9:04 PM
Maybe you will not want a humanoid robot lover but I bet that you will want dozen of realistic dinossaur robot lovers
36. Bester - March 6, 2009 12:03 AM
It's BALLS. Jesus, be a responsible journalist.
It's a robot that can lift disabled humans. No love or hugging bullshit.
http://www.bmc.riken.jp/~RI-MAN/index_us.html
37. pegs - March 6, 2009 12:37 AM
they are trying to built a Zettai Kareshi? like Naito in the serial drama?
38. first - March 6, 2009 3:16 AM
the story has already been reported as fake on other blogs like gizmodo
39. Blank - March 6, 2009 4:33 PM
“Despite our initial enthusiasm, it has become clear that Kenji’s impulses and behavior are not entirely rational or genuine,” conceded Dr. Takahashi.
yeah... I think your problem is that you succeeded too well. Seriously, in what way is love rational? if anything, love is the abandonment of logic for an unpredictable but desired outcome. great idea to try and emulate an emotion that you don't really understand in the first place. you'd think they'd have a few psychologists on their team...
40. amit - March 7, 2009 8:45 AM
nice post...................
41. Travis1 - March 7, 2009 12:03 PM
What a great way to start the process of a self thinking Robot.Leave it to mankind to keep playing with Fire.Time will tell.
42. Mike - March 8, 2009 3:04 PM
It's a hoax, there's nothing about it on any popular robotics websites, and Muckflash is a spoof news site like the Onion. Gizmodo recognized this, that thing in the picture is a medical bot made to lift up injured or immobile people and take them to safety.
43. billimarie - April 7, 2009 12:23 AM
I really think this entry wins specifically because of that crafty, kick-ass (literally) insult. It was seriously full of WIN.
-b
44. Hectorious - April 7, 2009 5:27 AM
Are you kidding me?!
That thing helping injured people and moving them to safety? looks more like it's bending that poor girl in half Mortal Kombat style!
I predict a plethora of lawsuits...given that anyone survives
45. P-Dub - April 13, 2009 10:22 PM
Stop mixing this fake robot news in with the REAL robot news! This kind of stuff desensitizes people to the real robot nightmares being created out there!
46. Sebastián - July 26, 2009 7:19 PM
Ok, it may be fake but...
Look at this: http://www.exploravision.org/winners/regional-winners-2007.php
Look at the first photo: There she is, Dr. Akiko Takahashi (Toshiba), working in robotics.
The end is nigh
47. Bender Bending Rodriguez - August 11, 2009 8:18 PM
Have you guessed the name of Billy's planet? It was earth!
DON'T DATE ROBOTS!!!
48. Gradus - September 24, 2009 9:03 AM
fantastico, no words
49. PohTayToez - October 26, 2009 2:24 PM
As interesting as this may seem, it's fake. The website you've got the story from write sensational but completely made up stories. Look at any story and then look up and name or company referenced and you'll find that they don't exist.
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