Big Gonzo is Watching You

July 4, 2023 8:43 AM

Do you love your cloud-connected personal assistant, but wish it had a bit more of a Jim Henson than a George Orwell vibe? Are you good with a soldering iron? Maybe you'd like to try your hand at building your own Animatronic Alexa.
posted by Popular Ethics (13 comments total)

Oh great, combining my biggest irrational fear with my biggest rational fear. Animatronics creep me out so much, my heart rate jumps when I have to go to the CVS during the holidays and walk past the aisle of dancing Santas.
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:08 AM on July 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

This is a fun project but it definitely has an unintentional subtle horror vibe for me. When he's all enthusiastic about how he is making it follow you with its eyes, or how he does all this work to figure out how to disable having to "wake" Alexa to let it talk... I'm glad he's having fun but I don't want that thing in my house.
posted by Wretch729 at 9:46 AM on July 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Definitely not UL approved. Having a naked fly back circuit, used to be around 18,000 volts, sitting there, is crazy.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:55 AM on July 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a pair of old men heckling a bear — forever.
posted by PlusDistance at 10:44 AM on July 4, 2023 [11 favorites]

Robot Revolution!

The revolution will be televised, and it'll be cute and fuzzy.

No really, now here's an example, a fake news counteraction. No matter how much we try to send the truth to trumpettes and other, it is just not believed. Now add an accuracy sub-channel, key it into the eye protocol and when a egregious message is sent, oh say "Desantis will shutdown the IRS", pass an EyeRoll bitpattern(tm). That will subliminally inject doubt into everyone with that alexabot.

Cute robo-friend, hand me my beer.
posted by sammyo at 11:47 AM on July 4, 2023

The moment I saw that CRT with no sound dampening material around it I knew that the creator had to be over the age of forty. I've had to abandon CRT projects that I was working on because there were people under the age of thirty in the room completely losing their minds.
posted by phooky at 11:53 AM on July 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

The moment I saw that CRT with no sound dampening material around it I knew that the creator had to be over the age of forty.

The moment it became clear this wasn't going to be a raspberry Pi with an LCD is the moment I knew the creator had to be over the age of forty. Still, I think there's space in this world for us old guys to hack together cute things the old fashioned way, even at the risk of a little high voltage :)
posted by Popular Ethics at 12:03 PM on July 4, 2023

People have been hacking Billy Bass to work with Alexa for a while. The one above is -much- cooler though :D
posted by isauteikisa at 1:00 PM on July 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Does this fiction count as a previously?
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 2:15 PM on July 4, 2023

figure out how to disable having to "wake" Alexa to let it talk

I don't think he does this - I think he just makes it so that the eyes respond as soon as the alexa starts listening. I think all the demos where it looks smart are just canned responses.
posted by aubilenon at 3:43 PM on July 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I want a little robot body for my cell phone
posted by rebent at 6:13 PM on July 4, 2023

Wow, talk about a Masked Shoggoth...
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:00 PM on July 4, 2023

Having just caught up on my re-watch of Black Mirror before tackling the new season, it immediately reminds me of Ashley Too, albeit with a little less mobility.
posted by bruzie at 5:23 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]