Stick a Fork in Us, We’re Done

I sometimes wonder why I even bother. I rant and rave about the brewing death of humanity at the hands of its impending robot overlords and how our children can be replaced by mechanical equivalents. What thanks do I get in return? A big flipping finger in my face. Are people out looking for ways to better themselves and remove the, ever tightening, technological yoke? Of course not. They’re out taking really bad pictures of imaginary lake creatures and dialing their psychic friend network to find out how they’re supposed to behave today.

But, as if that’s not bad enough, residents of Detroit are now going to build a statue to a robot. I guess they’re tying to get ahead of the curve.

“Oh look, glorious robot overlords, we love you! Please don’t hurt us, wonderful robot overlords! We’ll do anything you want. See the nice statue we built? We can build you more nice statues!”

That’s the spirit.

Get right down on your knees and start polishing those knobs … and dials.

As Rueters reports, RoboCop is being honored with his own metal simulacrum.

Plans for a statue honoring RoboCop, the half-man, half-machine crimefighter of the 1987 movie, are moving ahead after a group of artists and entrepreneurs in Detroit, Michigan raised more than $50,000 via Facebook and an online fund-raising site.

“It hit a sweet spot. It’s a fun and funny idea to build a statue of RoboCop,” said Jeff Paffendorf, who helped lead the project inspired by a whimsical suggestion sent to Detroit Mayor Dave Bing via Twitter last week.

Bing tweeted back at the time that there were no plans for a RoboCop statue, an off-hand remark that bounced around the Internet and generated calls for him to reconsider.

“There’s violence in ‘RoboCop,’ but through the film RoboCop tries to do the right thing,” Paffendorf said.

Bing’s office is still not convinced, but a spokeswoman said the city is studying how it could accept and display a gift RoboCop statue.

“We know there are a lot of people that care deeply about the issue, and we respect that,” said Karen Dumas of Bing’s office. “But I’m still not sure that RoboCop is the best message for the city of Detroit.”

Paffendorf said the RoboCop statue could go somewhere downtown if the city approves, perhaps near the landmark fist statue honoring legendary boxer Joe Louis.

But if Detroit will not allow RoboCop on city-owned land, a nonprofit arts group plans to display the statue, he said.

Paffendorf said a sculptor and a metal artist have been chosen to complete the job.

At this rate there’ll soon be a statue in D.C. dedicated to Gort.

Jimminy Crickets people, have you no shame?

Apparently not. As is being reported in NCBuy, Chinese restaurants no longer need Chinese people to make Chinese food. They’ve outsourced their jobs to robots.

Move over all the renowned chefs in the world–robotic chefs are here to serve you better. China may not have a dearth of quality chefs, but that has not stopped the inventors in the country from building robots that can cook gastronomic delights.

A fast-food restaurant, Wishdoing, located on Shanghai’s upmarket Nanjing Road has recently acquired two robots that can cook Chinese delicacies. Among the popular oriental dishes the robots can serve are spicy diced chicken with peanuts, Kung Pao chicken and Mapo Tofu (bean curd with chilli sauce).

“All one needs to do is press the button on the robots to choose a dish and they will display the name of the ingredients and their quantities,” a restaurant release said.

Appearance-wise they might not even come close to human beings–they are more like massive kitchen surfaces equipped with iron pots–but they are workaholics nonetheless. The robots only take three minutes to wash the pots from a previous order, mix the ingredients, finish the cooking and then place the food onto a plate for serving.

With a price tag of $30,350 per robot, they are not exactly cheap, but the fast-food chain has plans to install them at all its 100-out outlets across the country. The parent company of the fast-food chain, Shanghai Qi Ding Food Development Co., said in a statement that, “We believe the cooking robots will become a trend in the future for the fast-food industry as they guarantee low-carbon emission, food safety and standard tastes that don’t change from one outlet to another.”

And, of course, the company doesn’t have to pay them either. The company, however, doesn’t plan to layoff its kitchen staff.

Why should they let the staff go? The robots will still need someone to clean and maintain their gears until they learn to be completely self sufficient.

Obviously no one in China has ever seen To Serve Man.

IT’S A COOK BOOK PEOPLE!!!!!

Okay, maybe I’m overreacting a tad. After all, they’ll need to keep some of us alive to entertain them.

Right?