9 Perfectly Acceptable Responses to Meeting a Robot With the Phrase “This Robot Is Trained to Smash Your Camera” Written Across Its Torso
1. “Trained, huh? Not programmed or designed, but trained? As in someone had to teach the robot the fine art of camera-smashing? What’s the course syllabus for that like?”
2. “Kind of a specific purpose in life, don’t you think? What if I had a tape recorder or sketchpad, what would the robot do then?”
3. “What if — now, hear me out — what if in the future everyone carried this small thing in their pocket that was like a phone, camera and tape recorder all in one? And what if some of those devices didn’t have cameras but some of them did? Can we trust this robot to know the difference? Is it programmed — sorry, trained — to keep up with advances in picture-taking technology?”
4. “Actually, I want to get back to that ‘trained’ business. How many cameras did the instructors go through trying to teach that robot the correct smashing technique? Heck, how many Jimmies did they go through in those scenarios? ‘Well, robot, you were told to smash the camera but crushed the subject’s skull with your bare hands again. Can you tell me what you did wrong?'”
5. “Why smash the camera? Wouldn’t opening the camera and exposing the film serve the same purpose? Is whoever built this robot venting their frustrations on cameras for some specific reason? Or were they not as advanced in robotics as they thought and could only get the robot to make a crude smashing motion?”
6. “Sean? Sean Penn? (knock knock) That you inside?”
7. “Okay, so as we later learn in the story the robot was built to keep outsiders from sharing the secret of Dinosaur Island with the outside world. (Hint: It involves dinosaurs.) Doesn’t this seem like a… limited response? What if there’s more than one photographer? What if there are photographers all over the island? What if someone is using a telescope lens offshore? What about satellite images taken from space? All I’m saying is, I don’t think the guy behind this security system really considered all the angles.”
8. “Hold on. Whoever built this robot had the technology to create a walking, smashing automaton with the ability to discern through its monocular lens what cameras look like, but they couldn’t come up with a better way to announce the robot’s purpose but to scrawl it across the robot’s chest with a Sharpie?”
9. “Wait a minute — why would whoever built this robot even write that message in the first place? Of course Jimmy would run on sight; the robot is literally telling him what will happen if he gets too close. If I’m a serial killer who enjoys stabbing people, I don’t walk around with a shirt that says ‘I AM A KILLER WHO WOULD LIKE TO GET WITHIN STABBING RANGE OF YOU.’ That’s just common sense.”
