Ridiculously Human Robots - Television Tropes & Idioms

Robots are inhuman.
Human robots are in.

--"Reasons to Be Miserable," an Image Song for Marvin from The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.

"I bet bioandroids wish they didn't have to be that human"

--Gene Starwind, Outlaw Star

Robots in television -- particularly comedic television -- are usually human-like in ways that very few sane programmers would deem useful. It can be something as simple as being philosophical (wanting to understand human emotion, wondering if they have a soul, etc), but can extend to such things as robot social cliques, robot food, robot entertainment, robot religion, and even robot sex. It doesn't matter if it makes no sense in the context of a mechanical servant, or even if it's truly undesirable, the designers have put it in there for some twisted reason. In some cases they get a free pass - avoiding the Uncanny Valley is a perfectly legitimate reason to avoid mostly-realistic robots.

Now, it may be that an intelligence, artificial or not, needs to be human in the basics of intelligence, free will, et cetera to be functional at all. In this case, Ridiculously Human Robots make sense. However, it's rare that a series explicitly spells this out, and often, these human-like AIs are put right up next to similar, yet emotionless equivalents that function perfectly.

A corollary to this is that robots are comfortable in their own oddball version of society, and consider human conventions bizarre and silly. You'd think they be programmed to be familiar with human behaviour, and find it perfectly normal. Robots from places without humans, who are exempt from this complaint, curiously tend to adapt to human customs faster.

See also Instant AI Just Add Water, Super Powered Robot Meter Maids, Robot Girl. Compare and contrast with Artificial Human or Mechanical Lifeforms. May become subject to a Robotic Reveal if the robot looks ridiculously human enough to pass as one. Expect the reveal to have some squick if it's done via means like an Unusual User Interface.

Examples:

Western Animation

The main example is the robot society in Futurama, which peddles this trope to the point of comic redundancy, complete with separate-from-human Robot Hospitals, Robot Pornography and even Robot Insane Asylums for Robot Criminals. In a show that's ostensibly a science fiction satire, it fits in quite well as a subtle Running Gag.
- Not to mention Jewish Robots who believe that Robot Jesus was constructed, and was a very well programmed robot, but was not their messiah.
- Robots even have their own Hell with a Robot Devil. ...Which is located in New jersey, making it easy to escape.
  - Well, considering that once you leave Robot Hell, you're still in New Jersey... so it's questionable whether or not you're in the clear. Also, let's not forget the Lucy Liubots.
Transformers. Need I say more? In their defense, though, they're an alien race rather than human-made. In some continuities, they were created by another set of aliens, the Quintessons, to act as tools, which would fall under this trope; in other timelines, however, they were created by Primus, a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, to act as an intelligent species and protect the universe. They are generally sapient, emotional beings. Seeing one die can traumatize most younger viewers, and even, especially in particularly dramatic cases, a number of older ones. It's worth noting that they even have souls... if you hear talk about a Transformer's "spark", that's what it means. For all intents and purposes, they are genuinely people, albeit giant metal ones that can turn into various motor vehicles.
Parodied on one episode of The Simpsons: a burning robot screams "Why? Why was I programmed to feel pain!?"
- And in another when a peak into the future reveals robots that are so advanced they can even cry...except they're not waterproof and the tears make their heads catch fire and meltdown.
- Remarked upon by a scientist disassembling a robot at Itchy and Scratchy Land:
- --> (removing robot's head) I wish they wouldn't scream like that.

Television

Elements of this appear in the portrayal of the Cylons in the remake of Battlestar Galactica -- most notably, "robot religion".
- Justified by having only the Cylons with organic (indeed, cloned human) brains exhibit religious belief -- the Skinjobs aren't robots so much as they are biological androids, synthetic people. The fully-mechanical Centurions, what little we see of them, seem to be free of human affectations.
  - The BSG Movie Razor shows plainly that the original Centurions fit this trope perfectly.
  - Also, it would appear that the only thing keeping the current Centurions "free" of human affectations was their obedience chips, as once removed they react to any perceived threat to their fellow machines.
  - And they seem to be a lot more interested in religion now, too, so... Jossed.
- Also notable that Doctor Cottle, upon having to do surgery on a Cylon, bitches her out for her race deciding to be so Ridiculously Human. As he puts it, even if they were gonna insist on having bodies that could pass for a fully functional human, there's no reason why they couldn't have made some basic upgrades to the "plumbing".
An episode of The Twilight Zone (The Lonely) has a convict, alone on an asteroid, given a robot companion. He becomes so attached he elects to stay with her on the asteroid instead of taking parole, because there isn't enough room on the rocket for them both
There is, ultimately, no good reason for Star Trek The Next Generation's Commander Data to be "fully functional". Perhaps Data's creator deliberately set out to create an android as human as possible, setting a usable wang as a higher priority than basic emotional intelligence. Typical.
- Well, the model with emotions didn't turn out so hot. Anyways, what did you expect from a mad scientist?
  - Perhaps he just failed to consider that the reason the model with emotions didn't turn out so hot was that he didn't have a usable wang?
  - One should also consider that building a reasonably functional wang can be done with todays technology and a couple batteries, while programming human emotions is a little more tricky.
Vicky and Vanessa's sibling rivalry on Small Wonder.
In Get Smart, this extended to openly robotic characters smoking.
The holographic Doctor on Star Trek Voyager was unnecessarily human for a medical expert system. Bedside manner is vital to a doctor, but his was terrible, wiping out that excuse. (The real reason is the engineer who created the Doctor program was a raging egomaniac.) In an early episode, which was a combination of a holodeck malfunction and a Cuckoo Nest plot, he wonders why it was that he worried about the meaning of his existence. A character responds that it's natural to do so, but the Doctor counters that as a medical program he knows exactly what his purpose is and why he was created.
Parodied in Red Dwarf with Kryten, whose circuitry includes a guilt chip, a belief chip, a good taste chip which is sometimes bypassed by his humour circuits, etc.
- He states in one later episode that he's quite proud of the character flaws he has (with Lister's help) deliberately developed.
In Gekiranger's fourth episode, Geki Red, Jan, gets poisoned. In a rare case of a Ridiculously Human Robot that is not sentient, the antidote to the poison is administered by injecting it into the arm of the giant robot that everyone is piloting.
- They weren't piloting a robot, though. They were piloting a combined manifestation of their own fighting spirit. Jan's portion makes up the entire upper body, including the arm that the antidote was injected into.
The Robot from Lost In Space shows several human emotions and even contemplates suicide on at least one occasion. Verda, the android who appeared in a couple episodes, actually turned into a human when she felt love for the Robinsons.
Robert's Robots was a comedy series in which most of the cast were robots with ridiculously human characteristics, such as suffering from “condensation forming on my eyes” at emotional moments.
Subverted in at least one Doctor Who episode, where a person who thinks that robots should be free of human rule is a maniac and the villain of the story.
- It's a dangerous step to go from "Robots should be free" to "I must kill all humans to free the robots", but that villain takes it.
Cameron shows some very interesting quirks, not the least of which is her odd affinity for ballet.

Literature

In The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, there is the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's "Genuine People Personalities" feature, which is such a bad idea that SCC's marketing department gets executed for it en masse some unspecified time in the future.
R. Daneel Olivaw, from Isaac Asimov's Robot series. In his introductory book The Caves of Steel, we learn that Dr. Sarton had a really hard time overcoming the Uncanny Valley when designing him, but eventually he managed to pull off a robot that actually feels like an actual human. Daneel can even eat: he does so by putting the food in a bag that can be later thrown away.
- And in The Robots of Dawn, we meet the other humaniform robot ever constructed, R. Jander Panell, whose "murder" is the subject of the book's mystery. We also learn that Jander (and, presumably by extension, Daneel) is, like Data, "fully functioning".
  - And in Prelude to Foundation, set about ten thousand years after The Robots of Dawn, we meet R. Dors Venabili, yet "another" humaniform robot (this time female) designed by Daneel to become Hari Seldon's protector and companion. Not only is Dors fully functional, but she eventually develops genuine love for Seldon and actually violates the First Law to protect him.

Film

There's also Robots, an entire movie built around the concept.
The Terminators from the titular movies are made of human skin stretched over a robotic skeleton. As robots that are meant to infiltrate human camps and slaughter them from inside, the only thing that seems to tell them from a normal human is their Nigh Invulnerability; putting that aside, they look, smell, sweat, bleed and walk like an actual human. Dogs, however, aren't fooled.
Ridiculously Human AI was avoided in Sunshine. Although, like HAL, the computer can respond to natural-language commands and has a creepily calm voice, it has no internal mental life to speak of and therefore doesn't anticipate or adapt to problems outside of its original mission profile. If you've ever tried to wrestle a computer program into doing something beyond its basic functions, you'll see how accurate this is.
- It is, however, a plot point in 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which HAL becomes paranoid and psychotic after being given conflicting commands of equal importance.
The problems inherent in programming ridiculously human robots is explored in A.I.:Artificial Intelligence, in which the robot David is programmed with genuine love, rather than the simulated love of previous models (like Gigolo Joe). This leads to a Pinocchio-like plot later on.
- It shouldn't have, however. The original story by Brian Aldiss contained none of the "Pinocchio" subplot (and it was better). Aldiss begged Kubrick not to include the Pinocchian subplot, to no avail.
WALL-E never does explain how robots, such as WALL-E and EVE, gained personalities, or why some do and some don't. It's probably better that way.
- This Troper theorizes that it's exposure to Hello, Dolly! Think about it: WALL-E and EVE, who have been heavily exposed to the film, have the clearest personalities, the rogue robots, who have some personality but not as much as WALL-E or EVE, have obviously had minor exposure to the film (as evidenced by the rogue robot "singing" the melody of "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" near the end), and robots who mindlessly obey their programming to the point of seeming sociopathic, like AUTO, seem to have no knowledge of Hello, Dolly! whatsoever.
  - The Rogue robots were malfunctioning, and in one of the trailers (in Latin America at least) is stated that after centuries of doing his work Wall-E developed a flaw -a personality- so it may be defective robots get more human

Video Games

The Mega Man X series slips ever-closer to this trope's existence with every installment, deliberately. This is in direct contrast to the true, pure robots of the original series; it's implied that even Megaman himself was not truly capable of pure free will (except in the English version of 7, where he almost kills Wily over his specific objections that that would violate the first law of robotics. He doesn't care.). In the Japanese version, Mega Man obediently lowers his Arm Cannon when Wily pointed this out. As reploids are designed to be as human-like, or at least as life-like, as possible, it makes sense for further advancements to make reploids more resemble and function like synthetic versions of humans and animals. Interestingly, X and Zero themselves, despite being the models from which all reploids originate and the series' primary protagonists, are still essentially more mechanical than human. By the time of Mega Man ZX, the trope starts to go in the other way as well, and the line gets so blurred that Humans and Reploids stop making distinctions between each other, so that when Mega Man Legends rolls around, they've forgotten that there is a distinction.
Lampshaded in the videogame Oni, where the Diabolical Mastermind Muro is torturing (yes, torturing) the android Shinatama for information in a cutscene.
Muro: "Curious. Why bother programming you to feel pain so intensely? Of course pain is a necessary response to certain stimuli, but they could have dulled the sensation or given you a threshold that would limit the extent and depth of your agony...I'm glad they didn't."
- Justified, sort of, by Shinatama's original purpose of monitoring Konoko. ("I've seen everything you've seen, felt everything you've felt...")
The robots in Scrap Land. The protagonist himself is said to have built himself up from scratch. Somewhat subverted in that, when a human inadvertently reaches the planet, they freak out.
The androids in the adventure game Zero Zone. One of the puzzles requires seducing one of the robots (yes, there is a sex scene). The ultimate goal of the game is to broadcast a song that sends the titular (and female, natch) Zero Zones in heat, explicitely sending them on a rape rampage, getting pregnant, and thus helping human/robot relationships thanks to the newborns. No, it's not hentai. But it is French, if you're asking.
Mostly in homage to the Terminator example, the titular robots in Snatcher are insanely powerful robotic skeletons covered in artificial skin - their Achilles Heel, in that it turns cancerous far too quickly when exposed to sunlight. While they are incapable of perceiving things which require actual human perception (such as identifying optical illusions), they appear to feel emotions and act quite a lot like human religious fanatics. They run their own hospitals and biotechnology institutions on the sly, while imitating a real human perfectly to the point of being able to bleed and (it is implied) have sex. They even have a religious obsession with the Kremlin, and herald Dr. Modnar, their inventor, as their god.
Lamia Loveless, from Super Robot Wars is an android created by the Shadow Mirrors. In Original Generation 2, she even got sick by drinking some "Kushua's stamina potion", which has exactly the same effect on humans (and aliens) characters.
- She may just be a cyborg/bioroid. Ironically, she is more human than the creator intended.
- Subverted in Lune Zoldark's mecha Valsione. Imagine a humongous mecha formed to have an girlish look, long hair, face that can mimic the pilot's expression (Lune's). And it's controlled with the Direct Motion Link which translates pilot movement into its own movement. Needless to say, this robot is like a giant, walking Lune, enough to make the resident Ascended Fanboy Ryusei go Squee... for the first time (he'd squee the next time he sees a girlish looking mecha. But this one is definitely the most ridiculously human). Unfortunately, unlike Lamia, Valsione is still a robot, meaning it won't have its own consciousness, thus it looks human, but does not act like one.
A large portion of the plot of Xenosaga revolves around KOS-MOS's strangely human behaviour. This is justified, however, as (warning: major series spoiler) she is actually a vessel for the reincarnated spirit of Mary Magdelene, as was intended by Kevin..
The Mecha Mooks in Super Smash Bros Brawl, the R.O.B. Squad. They're very clearly distressed when they and their comrades are torn apart by a Subspace Bomb. It's quite Tear Jerker-y. It also leads to Moral Dissonance sometimes.
Yumemi from the "kinetic novel" Planetarian may still have quite a few robotic quirks, but her appearance and behavior are human enough to enthrall the protagonist.
Aigis from Persona 3 is a justified case; if she didn't look human, her mind wouldn't self-identify as human, which is required in order for her to be able to summon a Persona (as Personae are physical manifestations of human personalities and emotions).
You wouldn't think the geth from Mass Effect would be humanlike in any way, right? And that's true, until you realize that mechanical screeching sound they make when you kill them is their equivilant of screaming in pain as they die.

Anime

Sexaroids Sylvie and Anri, in Bubblegum Crisis. However, given their intended function, this isn't so strange. Perhaps more unusual (and disturbing) is the fact that, of the two Boomer models designed to resemble women, only those purposely designed for sexual use appear to be sentient. And then there's Anri, who's apparently built to look permanently underage...
- To be fair, if robots don't legally count as people, it might be "better" in some sense of the word to sell the Anri-types to those who like that sort of thing, rather than let them do what they've been doing before that. I'd explain in more detail but I'd rather not.
The comic relief robot in Uchuu Senkan Yamato (also known as Starblazers) is apparently programmed specially for sexual harassment.
- Though exceedingly nonhuman in form, vaguely resembling R2-D2.
Alpha from Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou eats, sleeps, dreams, cries, has fantasies and generally behaves in a very human manner, including having a romantic relationship (with another Robot Girl, no less). She never ages though while all the human beings around her do, making for quite some melancholic moments, especially in the manga. The robots of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou have in particular one feature that is especially ridiculously human: for some reason their data input ports are all in their mouths, which means that for one robot to transfer data to another, they have to kiss.
The androids from Armitage III are actually ranked according to how human they are. "Firsts" are basically non-human robots, "Seconds" are androids, and the "Thirds" are so close to human they can get pregnant.
So can the Cyberdolls in Hand Maid May. This is hinted at at the end.
The Sexaroids from Ghost in the Shell 2 also fit this trope until they start ripping their skin off and commiting robo-suicide, causing their faces to burst open and wiring to flow out. They fall into the Uncanny Valley somewhere around that point. As the last scene shows, they somewhat start out there too.
- Really, all the androids in the Ghost in the Shell movies/shows (and possibly manga, this troper hasn't read it) fit this. To the point where they have humanoid androids running their computers by typing really fast. Why not just build their A Is into the computer? Or, at the very least, use direct, wired, connections to the computers, rather than typing? (Which is incredibly slow by comparison.)
  - Rule of Cool. It is far more impressive to have masses of robot women in a high-tech podium-style room than a few hardrives whirring away in a broom closet.
Dolores from Zone Of The Enders: Dolores, i Has her own feelings and emotions, feels pain even when she's not particularly damaged, and even cries when she's sad, to the point of fluid leaking out of her primary optic sensors (once, she even smacks herself in the head to calm down). This, despite being a Humongous Mecha.
This editor has never seen a good reason why almost all of the persocoms in Chobits couldn't be replaced with spiders with a voicebox. (Besides the total demolition of the plot, of course)
- This editor argues that doing so would make it unreasonably difficult to find the power switch.
  - This editor reminds the previous editor that it is explicitly spelled out that Chii is an exception, since her creator wanted to make sure she'd end up with someone who'd love her instead of just wanting sex, and that every other Persocom has an off-switch on one of their ears.
  - This editor has seen many... err... alternatives to the sex thing thrown around in chat rooms. Some rather glaringly obvious and common (even in normal society), to the point where one wonders exactly how the writers overlooked them.
- This editor would like to point out the one scene that occurs in a police station, where all the cops are typing on keyboards plugged into...miniature Persocoms. Which then, of course, output to flat panel displays, thus fufilling the job of a $300 generic beige-box computer in a hilariously roundabout and expensive manner. Way to go, guys.
- Spiders with voiceboxes wouldn't be as cute or physically capable as persocoms, which are eye candy, companions, sex dolls, and substitutes for human employees, all in one.
Good old Astro Boy inspired an entire country's culture with regards to this trope. Despite varying levels of humanoid physical appearance, robots have their own society and culture, and yes, even actual robot churches. Many real life Japanese roboticists have thusly been inspired to have the same mindset as the scientist who created Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has the Wolkenritter (plural) and Reinforce, programs (albeit magical ones) with emotions and individual personalities. In addition to having physical forms, they eat, sleep, and bleed. The characters of the series pretty much consider them as humans.
Chachamaru from Mahou Sensei Negima, while she is programmed for certain things (being Evangeline's servant) possesses human traits, mainly emotions like embarassment (complete with ~~crying~~ leaking laser fluid from her eyes), compassion (helping little old ladies up stairs and feeding stray cats), and, most obviously, love. Lampshaded by her creator, who can't figure out how the heck that happened, who (taking "hard science" a little to the extreme) takes personal offense that she's forced to consider philosophy to try and figure out what happened (though she resolves to be more of a mother figure to Chachamaru). Might be justified, since she's partly Magitek.
- And there is always the matter of 'winding her up' to recharge her... She basically goes into convulsions and ends up in a panting heap when Negi 'screws' the key (in the back of her head, you sicko). Hilarity Ensues. Period.
Played with in Outlaw Star. Gilliam II, the titular Cool Ship's computer, is entirely sentient with the sole exception that he is incapable of contemplating his purpose in life. To get over this hurdle, he instead decides to contemplate his inability to contemplate his purpose in life. Trippy.
- There is also the case of Melfina who, despite her skeletal structure, some muscle mass, and specific parts of her brain are machinery (as shown in an x-ray during an introduction to the concept of bio-androids by the narrator), she still possess human organs and actual human skin. How she possesses them is never explained, but if they weren't originally hers, it brings her creator's amorality to new levels.
  - Synthesized muscles and organ sets. It's All There In The Manual or rather All There In The Episode Introduction.
Rozen Maiden has as its protagonists a cavalcade of animate dolls built specifically to kill each other in a There Can Be Only One tournament. This is all in the good, but one is left to wonder why they were built capable to feel pain, grief, fear and loss. Or, for that matter, affection, attachment and remorse toward their sisters. It's little wonder the tournament didn't get anywhere in hundreds of years.
- This editor believes it to be because Rozen is a sadistic bastard.
In Steel Angel Kurumi, Kurumi and the other steel angels act exactly like humans except for their ridiculous power level. Be glad they're programmed to obey whoever activates them unconditionally, otherwise they'd almost certainly take over the world.
- Fantastic loyalty and [[Nigh Invulnerability]] don't seem to be qualities precluding a single megalomaniac from creating an army of unstoppable killing robots. Of course, in the manga, it took badass spiritual powers to animate a Steel Angel; but Nakahito didn't have that excuse in the OAV.
- You forget that, in the anime, one of the most notable facets of Karinka's character is that, as an unintentional side-effect of having two angel hearts, she lacks the obedience imperative. It's very obvious that, while not caring about world dominion, her initial prime motivator is a desire to be the strongest.
Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix includes tales that hit on a group of robots who, despite looking like large metal cannisters with limbs, connect better with their masters because they seem a little more human than most. They're connected to a hive mind and, when one is executed, the others walk en masse to kill themselves in lava pits. Furthermore, one who is on the moon at the time considers his more human characteristics at length, because it seems odd that he cannot follow the actions of the others. He eventually proves he's more than a robot by murdering his arrogant boss. And somewhere in the mix, we find out that the robots are more than mere machines, since the first one was made from the joined souls of a human and robot lover (who, yes, appears to have had a soul as well, oddly enough).
The robotic members of the GGG in Gao Gai Gar could easily be mistaken for Autobots in both appearance and mannerisms. In one episode, HyoRyu and EnRyu both get into an argument over whether it's right to let 9-year-old Mamoru into combat because of his Zonder-detecting ability, while at the same time, both are drinking... something... out of gigantic cups complete with huge bendy-straws.
- Dont' forget, they're both powered by their own courage. Don't think about it too much, since by the end of the series, the number of self-powering Brave Robos is up to eight, not counting Galeon.
Suzu in Hotori - Tada Saiwai o Koinegau clearly has a personality and emotions of his own, and is also (despite the fact that his internal mechanical workings are shown on several occasions and he doesn't really seem to have organs) capable of eating and crying.

Webcomics

Ping from Megatokyo sleeps like an actual human when she's in idle mode, can use the chemical energy from sugar to recharge her batteries, and in one chapter, she angrily tells Piro that she has real feelings even though these feelings are simulated. However, she does have a couple of robotic quirks: when she sees Piro all mopey because he couldn't wind up the courage to call Kimiko, Ping misrecognizes his posture and attitude as being rejected by Kimiko, and suddenly goes into Genki Girl mode. Not bad for a Play Station 2 accessory.
Some of the most memorable characters in the comic Freefall are robots. To be fair, discovering the reason for the robots' humanity has somewhat become a major plot arc.
The webcomic Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life has a cast consisting of nothing but Ridiculously Human Robots, who eat (and gain/lose weight somehow), drink (and get drunk), feel pain and even date and wed each other. It justifies this by explaining that the humans that built them before humans went extinct wanted to make sure robots could better appreciate and interact with normally humans-only pleasantries, such as theme restaurants.
Pintsize in QuestionableContent seems to have emotions (mostly schandenfreude and lust) and has even gone through a phase of questioning his gender/sexuality.
Lie Bot and Vlad from Achewood are both robots which are constantly lying, and talking about Make-outs respectively. Vlad, for no reason at all, has an accent.

Comic Books

Justified in the case of SHIELD's Life Model Decoys in the Marvel Comics universe, as they are meant to be completely indistinguishable from the people for whom they are body-doubles.
- However, the super-powered LMD derivatives informally called Livewires sometimes lament their Ridiculously Human nature, since realistic human emotions and brain chemistry aren't all that conducive to deadly wetworks operations. And, as Stem Cell observes:
  Stem Cell: Is there any reason we're anatomically correct?!
- Also averted by the Livewires, however; Because of the procedures they've performed on themselves, they totally lack fear and doubt, making them far less human than you could possibly imagine.
Double subverted in Invincible. Robot's thought process is very elusive, and he admits to not understanding his human teammates at all, and not particularly wanting to. Then comes The Reveal: Robot is a disfigured human who can remote control a robot body. When he eventually clones a new body, he's able to be fully human, but is still rather cut off from normal emotions (unless they have something to do with Monster Girl.)

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