This Video Of RCSI's 'Birthing Robot' Is The Most Horrifying Thing You'll See All Day
For many years now we have been sold ideas of a halcyon future for humanity. A glorious world, that has seemed just out of reach for so long, but finally seems like it's arrived. A world of robotics, of gleaming impressive machines designed to obey our beck and call; to assist us and improve our lives. As children, I think most people reading this will have imagined that by the time they were adults they'd be coming downstairs in the morning to have their breakfast made by some sparkling cyborg. I was imaging something close to Transformers, basically.
What I, and I'm sure most of you, were not imagining was that the pinnacle of our achievement in this field thusfar would amount to a sort of terrifying mannequin, that looks vaguely like a wax model of Steve Tyler, forcing, what I will describe for now as, 'a baby' out of itself, all while begging to be given lots of drugs.
I'm not here to say that the purpose of this robot, to help trainee doctors and mid-wives in RCSI gain invaluable experience in as realistic a setting as possible, is anything other than a great thing. I am simply going to question every other decision they've made in the design and overall aesthetic of the hellish monstrosity that they have created.
The face. My god. My goodness gracious the face.
Whoever designed that face, whoever moulded it in whatever plastics workshop it was conjured up in, deserves to be banished to the deepest circle of hell and served with the cruellest punishment it's possible to devise, which presumably would just be forcing him to stare at that face for about 20 minutes.
It's obviously supposed to be fixed in an expression of pain, what with the whole 'giving birth' malarkey, but honestly, I don't know whose 'pain face' so liberally deploys their bottom teeth. The whole thing is trapped in some terrifying uncanny valley and is all the creepier for the vague way it attempts to approximate human expressions, in much the same way Theresa May does.
There are also significant anatomical problems with the arse and leg joints of the baby that I frankly don't have the time to get into; the issues are simply too myriad.
I don't think I will ever witness a sight more traumatic in this world then that of the weird facsimile baby sliding out of that thing; like some luggage on a luggage carousel, like a can of coke coming out of a anthropomorphised vending machine. That said, I imagine there is a market for novelty vending machines where, once you've paid, it gives birth to a Snickers for you. I imagine it would go down well in Japan.
**Disclaimer** The College Times cannot and will not be held directly liable for the vast amount of emotional damage you will inflict on yourself by watching this video. That said, you obviously have to watch it.