How to Prove Your Guy is a Robot

Have you suspected for the last 20 years that you might be living with a robot? Well, now you can prove it with this handy checklist. Tick all that apply:

He knows a lot about hammers but general intelligence is a challenge

has a limited range of facial expressions

can pick up and manipulate most household objects

shows limited capacity to walk up the stairs

plays soccer almost all of the time but is really bad at it

has a body that’s wrong in size and proportion

has something vaguely resembling a human face

that something can move into a variety of semi-convincing expressions

has recently taken up video game playing and trading stocks

can drive autonomously to and from a bar but on his way causes many traffic accidents

shows no self awareness

over the years has evolved to be more controlling and violent

can continuously and repeatedly perform the same task without getting bored

does not get better with experience

lacks emotions, ethics, moral values or concepts such as care and understanding

in case of a breakdown, the cost of repair is very high

has limited natural language processing, especially language understanding

has a lot to prove

does not like change — when the environment changes gets highly confused and performs poorly

speaks in pre-programmed chunks such as “How’s it going” and “No, thanks”

provides endless recommendations on books and movies, but they’re not that good

does not respond to subtleties

frequently threatens the survival of humans around him

helps generate new anxieties

good behaviour is a major challenge

blames his makers for failing to correctly instruct him on how to behave

gets everything wrong

Instructions: if you’ve said “yes” to at least one of the above — congrats, you’ve successfully proven he’s a robot! If you’ve said “no” to at least one of the above, I’m afraid it might not be true. Please get a new guy and try again.