With The Late Show’s final episode looming on May 21st, Stephen Colbert spent part of his penultimate week doing what he does best, finding the absurdity in the news cycle. This week’s target: American TV anchors going to Beijing to learn about robots and airing footage that basically writes its own punchlines.
First up was ABC’s David Muir, who visited a robotics conference in China and filed a segment on a 121-pound humanoid robot trained via AI to bow, lay completely flat on the ground, and then stand back up. Muir explained that the robot’s flexible waist was designed for household tasks and family chores. Colbert had thoughts. Specifically, he noted that the robot “took the job I’m starting on May 22nd”, which was a self-deprecating nod to his own impending unemployment. Then, watching footage of the robot standing up and gyrating its hips, Colbert suggested it wasn’t demonstrating household utility so much as simulating “the important household chore of a husband annoying his exhausted wife” by doing the Shakira dance instead of fixing the shower or the fire alarm. As robotics criticism goes, it’s not wrong.
Fox News anchor Bret Baier got the second segment. Baier’s contribution to the robot beat was a “first of its kind” self-service food robot, to which he asked, with full journalistic gravity, “Hello, can I get a sausage please?” The robot acknowledged the order. Colbert declared that humanity had finally arrived at the dystopian future The Terminator warned us about.
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