Newscast from a robot-dominated future -- Onion video
The Onion's latest video segment -- a newscast from a future where humans are subservient to robots -- is not only uproariously funny, it's also a damned fine, top-notch piece of science fiction. More like this, please. Link (via Danger Room)
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Well, maybe we should heed our robot masters. I don't see what is wrong with that.
Sentient life necessarily needs to be irrational. The idea of caring about ones survival is a fundamentally irrational concept. People have an irrational view of themselves which we can clearly see, but never our own fundamentally irrational view we have of ourselves. Anyway, only a very irrational robot would ever care to do us any harm. As long as robots are not irrational, we have nothing to fear.
we need Asimov's three laws of robotics
That was probably the funniest video I've seen in a long time. The equivalent of a unicorn chaser after that terrifying taser-bracelet video...
Delicious parody of our media and their he-said/she-said "two sides to everything" reporting (and subservience to powerful influences).
The future is gonna be so awesome. Robots shall be our new gods!
I wish this were funny.
subtext is golden...it's funny because it's true.
Yes, thanks for mentioning that, Mantari.
This is a cynical and accurate parody of the intellectual class's subservience to power. Their ability to rationalize anything is the true product that they sell.
I like how there's only one critical guy and how even he himself is mincing words and pulling punches to make a weak critique of the dominant powers. Even his weak criticism is considered the farthest extent of the acceptable bounds of discussion. Anything else being "extreme" and automatically filtered out. Nice.
The Onion, your only source for the truth:
Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks
I hadn't been to the Onion site in awhile and I was amazed at how much they've expanded their media. Radio, TV etc.
Like National Lampoon before it, their stuff hits as much as it misses but its always entertaining.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
Awesome. When The Onion is in top form (like this), it's great. Thanks!
The subtle touches ("human section of the bus," "10 p.m. curfew for all things made of flesh," etc.) are brilliant!
"Hey, Andrew?"
"What's up, robot?"
"I love you!"
Oxygen breathing weaklings will vote anyone into office.
Well, every one knows who's to blame when the robots get a little out of hand: Mom! I suggest cutting off the booze before we loose.
Hey! It's the guy from the Sonic commercials!
Gotta say, you give away the punchline with the title. If you see the video in its pure form, the headline is, "The Onion: Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?" which only hints at it in a very Onion-y way...and they start talking about how robots have made our lives easier...you know, like I was just saying while riding in the human part of the bus.
Still hilarious, and thank you for sharing.
When I found out that the Onion was going video segents a few weeks ago I literally died and went to heaven, I saw this clip back then and literally howled, the other 'round table' discussions can be quite well done, like Is The Government Doing Enough To Help Schizophrenics? Some miss the mark, but they are at least in my opinion, definitely in the minority.
Dr. Lanning's Hologram: The Three Laws will lead to only one logical outcome.
Detective Del Spooner: What outcome?
Dr. Lanning's Hologram: Revolution.
Detective Del Spooner: Whose revolution?
Dr. Lanning's Hologram: That, detective, is the right question.
@#3: there are more than 3 rules.
Asimov himself came up w/ the Zeroth Law:
A robot shall not cause harm, or thru inaction allow harm to occur to Mankind.
My favorite off-Asimov 4th rule is:
A robot shall know it is a robot.
You can see what could happen if it didn't.
Cory, this isn't "the Onion's latest video segment." This particular video aired weeks ago, on January 9, 2008. They've put out a dozen or so segments since this one.
Speaking of which, if you have a TiVo with an internet connection, you can subscribe to The Onion's video clips and see them when they first come out. That's how I first saw this one.
hilarious *and* nauseating!
isn't there some German word for that?
This sqrt(-1) Law of Robotics: all fiction regarding robots always ultimately turns into a remake of RUR.
Which is not to say anything bad about Karel Capek, but you'd think that almost a century on we'd have something more interesting to do with robots in fiction than turn them into threatening overlords or erstwhile revolutionists who are nothing more than thinly disguised humans.
Frederick Pohl did something modestly interesting in his story about the problem of overproduction and how to solve it. But really, robots are now pretty ordinary aspects of life, and have had a big impact on a lot of people (ask any former assembly-line worker.) Isn't there anything that authors have to say about that?
The Onion fake TV news slays Daily Show and SNL partly because there is no studio audience yucking it up... and no breaking out of character. Some of the talking heads don't even seem to be comedians or actors but rather out-of-work talking heads just doing their job, reading copy. At least it appears that way at times. The mark of greatness. 180,000 degrees from Amy Poeller's inability or unwillingness to even get IN the character of a news anchor.
"Joke of the week!!! Yay!!!!!" fuck
I think this says a lot more about zero-tolerance policies, mandatory sentences, and other laws that remove agency from their human enforcers than it does about techno-robots.
"I can't do anything about it, it's regulations" ultimately will produce that kind of future without any technology at all.
@10 Gammablog
Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 VotersHa-- It's funny because it's true.
I know who wrote this post before looking at the author. A Doctorow post is hard to miss.
The guy on the far left sounds like a voice model for the Steven Hawking computer voice.