Elon Musk’s New Robot Venture Is Essentially Cartman’s AWESOM-O Prank
As you’ve probably heard by now, last week Elon Musk staged a tech event heralding his bold new vision for the world of tomorrow. Unfortunately, that “bold vision” was really just designs from a 20-year-old Will Smith movie that only has 57 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. You may as well try to base a futuristic utopia on Michael Bay’s The Island, or Surrogates starring Bruce Willis.
But the big star of the “We, Robot” event was Optimus, Musk’s exciting new artificial intelligence creation that can do our chores for us, throw dance parties and even serve drinks. Musk suggested that Optimus could one day be cheaper to buy than a car. But at least no Toyota Corollas have ever tried to murder John Connor.
It later turned out that these Optimus units were really being controlled by human beings, a detail that was conspicuously omitted from Musk’s presentation, probably because the idea of a robot butler is a tad less appealing if it requires a stranger hiding in your bushes with a remote control the whole time.
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Some pointed out that the old “robots secretly controlled by humans” routine dates back hundreds of years, but we’d argue that this reveal also mirrors a piece of pop-culture from the 2000s that isn’t I, Robot: the 2008 South Park episode “Awesom-O.”
It finds Cartman disguising himself as a sophisticated robot named “AWESOM-O” purely to prank Butters. Cartman ends up having to extend his ruse once he discovers that Butters has a video tape of him impersonating Britney Spears and making out with a cardboard cutout of Justin Timberlake (which would be especially embarrassing today).
Things get really out of hand once Butters takes Cartman to visit his Aunt Nellie in Los Angeles and “AWESOM-O” is discovered by Hollywood executives from Catamount Studios. They end up hiring the cardboard machine to come up with hit movie pitches, most of which involve Adam Sandler. It’s not long before the Pentagon takes note of AWESOM-O’s success and decides to kidnap and weaponize him.
The story is obviously extremely silly, and according to Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it was produced in a rush due to the scheduling of a friend’s Hawaiian wedding. But, in retrospect, “Awesom-O” was adept at portraying how some people will happily buy into fantastical, yet ultimately false technological promises, overlooking the obvious “it’s just a guy” explanation every time. Sometimes it’s a machine that can churn out screenplay ideas, other times it’s a mechanical bartender that will serve as payback to all those greedy customer service workers who had the nerve to ask to be paid a living wage.
It’s possible that the similarities between Elon Musk and Eric Cartman end there, but just in case, never taste any of the billionaire’s homemade chilli.
