Everyone used to think that the arrival of everyday-use robots would turn our world into something out of a super exciting sci-fi novel. Now, in 2020, the machines are here and doing all sorts of stuff—killing viruses, working in warehouses, fucking with gorillas, and becoming superheroes—but everything else about daily life is either kind of boring or terrifying in ways that have plenty of historic precedent.
Still, we must continue to document the robot’s continued rise around the world not because we expect them to usher in an era of flying cars and commuter jetpacks, but because it’s our duty to monitor them always to make sure they don’t develop any of that pesky “agency” that could spell the end of our species. And so, in constant vigilance, we present some incredibly stupid-looking robot cheerleaders dancing and singing for our amusement.
Unlike in the future, when they’ll be used to hunt down the last surviving humans huddled in underground caves decades after the robopocalypse, these machines have been deployed for a friendlier purpose: Cheering on the Softbank Hawks as they play baseball for the currently empty stands of Fukuoka, Japan’s Paypal Dome. Aside from the everyday cyberpunk reality of sports teams and stadiums being named after giant corporations, the robots are mostly just too goofy to seem threatening. But don’t let your guard down.