A Digital Downer
To begin with, it must be made clear that robots are not humans. It matters not how emotional, empathetic, humorous, or realistic they may seem. All a robot can project is that which it has been taught to project.
So why was this one acting so depressed?
LARFBOT was designed to be a children’s party entertainer. By a clown.
Yet all the hunk of anthropomorphised metal seemed capable of doing was reciting tragic poetry, reaching its little golf club arms up to the moon and playing a mournfully slowed down version of its laugh track through its grit-toothed grin.
‘Ah-hah. Ah-hah.’
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#FLASHFICTION101 January 2021 SHORTLISTED ENTRY
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