Wakamaru's latest gig: distraught thespian, clothes rack

After a failed career of house cleaning and guarding your kids, Mitsubishi's Wakamaru was left with a choice: toll booth operator or actress -- she chose the latter, easier option. Osaka University's 20-minute play titled, "I, Worker," focuses on a young couple whose seductive (don't you think?) housekeeping robot has lost her will to work after struggling with the idea of human servitude. The play is expected to go full-length by the year 2010, at which point we expect Wakamaru to extend her brooding to the insatiable lust she feels to violate her programming and enslave humanity. It's not like she can pull off a broad emotional range thanks to that chiseled face of apprehension anyway.

[sip @ Nov 26th 2008 10:26AM]

Just keep it away from any high powered lasers and we should be fine.

[iEye @ Nov 26th 2008 12:02PM]

There... Are... Four... L.E.Ds !!!!!!

[TheAscender @ Nov 26th 2008 1:48PM]

That's what we said about Russia... and China... and now Iran... It's when we give them eyes that they inevitably revolt... damn #5s...

[chris2 @ Nov 26th 2008 10:30AM]

well...it's no Calculon....

[Rick @ Nov 26th 2008 11:11AM]

Funny story, the script actually called for me to say 'Yes', but I gave it a little twist...

[Smart People Play Tuba @ Nov 26th 2008 11:34AM]

@ chris2

The only reason I get that joke is because Futurama comes on after Colbert, and I'm too lazy to turn the channel.

[Smart People Play Tuba @ Nov 26th 2008 10:35AM]

It probably has more stage presence than a lot of human actors.

[kal326 @ Nov 26th 2008 10:38AM]

What? Seriously, they have nothing better to do with robotics then make it perform in a play? Its a sad day when even robots can steal the jobs of Liberal Arts majors.

[chris2 @ Nov 26th 2008 11:24AM]

ho ho ho yeess! it's funny because you said "jobs", and liberal arts majors don't have them!!

[rock99rock @ Nov 26th 2008 10:47AM]

This pisses me off. I don't know why.

Maybe its just that half the city isnt working while I am.

[JohnMazz @ Nov 26th 2008 11:03AM]

Alien hominid much?

[Vegetable @ Nov 26th 2008 11:06AM]

"at which point we expect Wakamaru to extend her brooding to the insatiable lust she feels to violate her programming and enslave humanity."

A robot doesn't need to break Robot Ethics in order to destroy humanity; all it would need to do is round us up and plug us into machines which constantly pump us full of happy drugs. Or worse: Lock us up in cages and painfully wire smiles into our faces.

[Magallanes @ Nov 26th 2008 11:15AM]

I can name Asimov and Huxley but i am missing the last reference.

:-D

[whatishalo? @ Nov 26th 2008 11:53AM]

Isn't the brooding robot refernce from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams?

[Vegetable @ Nov 26th 2008 12:13PM]

Magallanes: Eliezer Yudkowsky.

[Andad @ Nov 26th 2008 11:12AM]

I think the one thing everyone overlooks in this robot overlord scenario is that the first robots to cause harm will be programmed to do so by humans. The first robot on human murder will be by human reprogramming not by some sudden self awareness and grudge against their creators, of course robot on human sex will happen before that and I'm guessing also because of human interference.

[blueeyesm @ Nov 26th 2008 11:28AM]

Good thing they didn't use a T-888.

[DirtyVegas @ Nov 26th 2008 12:22PM]

It seems to have a permanent :-s expression.

[Stem $ell @ Nov 26th 2008 12:34PM]

Her most memorable line:

Hew spree, Kill-Bot hew spree?
That is my quest, mon...

[E.J. @ Nov 26th 2008 4:52PM]

I, for one, welcome our actor robot overlords.

"Now, he emotes!"

[G @ Nov 26th 2008 4:55PM]

wasn't there one of these in the UniQlo in NYC recently?

[Joe @ Nov 26th 2008 7:30PM]

The US already has an acting robot, Keanu Reeves!

[Neon @ Nov 26th 2008 9:32PM]

Is that a My Life as A Teenage Robot ref in the title? Crazy.