Grok Robots

Twenty-five years ago the band Styx combined the rock opera stylings of Tommy with the production values of 1970s Doctor Who episodes to give us Mr. Roboto. Its lyric hook taught a generation of Americans the only Japanese phrase they’d ever know, and its theme of robot as friend, companion and revolutionary influenced anyone who was watching too much Mtv at the time (i.e., everyone under 20). Take a look:

What did we learn about the future from this song?

• We all need control
• Surprisingly, IBM is still around (and manufacturing positronic brains)
• Music videos were wildly optimistic about what robots would be like in the near future

Sony’s discontinued Qrio was perhaps the closest we’d gotten to being surrounded by helpful Mr. Robotos. So, it was no surprise MAKE Magazine’s resident robot expert Phillip Torrone thoughts turned to Qrio when asked to talk a bit about Mr. Roboto’s birthday:

“It’s a crime against humanity that Sony hasn’t open sourced their line
of robotic humanoids and canines since they discontinued development.
Robot ‘friends’ and ‘companions’ are far more interesting and
beneficial to the human race than anything else they’re working on at
the moment. besides, we know how the story ends if we continue to
create robots for war and conflict - they’ll eventually turn against us
and/or turn us in to batteries to power the matrix.”

The song was famously used in a 1999 VW commercial, which in turn was referenced years later by the television show Arrested Development:

I will not admit how many times I listened to this song, but it was enough times to make the twenth-fifth anniversary of this song a fitting day to launch this blog. Eventually I moved on (from the song, if not robots). Sometimes that is for the best as not everything ages well.