The Wild West meets Wall-E.
A slick-talking, cowboy hat-wearing robot, unofficially named “Jake the Rizzbot,” stunned both Texas locals and the Internet with its proficiency in both Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang while out on the town last week — even inspiring a Bitcoin in its honor.
The child-sized, AI-powered robot — complete with a knockoff cowboy hat and silver chain — was captured on video all around Austin, Texas during its training out in the wild.
The little engine did its best to jog down sidewalks and even talked to awed passersby, while spitting the latest slang, clips shared online show.
Jake left no stone unturned as it galavanted through Austin. The robot, which is operated by a person through a wireless controller, is manufactured by the China-based Unitree Robotics.
The Unitree G1 humanoid agent was originally unveiled last May, clocking in at 4 feet tall and 77 pounds. It sells for around $16,000, but prices often vary, according to the Unitree website.
The robot is meant to serve as an “AI avatar” that develops “based on deep reinforcement learning and simulation training,” according to the company website.
Jake is thankfully still learning and, despite his name, isn’t able to pick up ladies at the bars just yet. Still his “rizz” impressed Austin locals enjoying the nightlife last week.
The man who owns and operates Jake accompanied it on the test run. He was eager to show off his latest gadget and wasn’t bothered when Jake started to run out of battery, instead telling people that they “might get to see it faint.”
“Hey! My name is Jake, but perhaps better known as Rizzbot. It’s nice to meet you,” Jake began in a video captured by a man it encountered, before diving straight into the typical lauding praise it’s known for.
“Ma homie, that beard is cold and that mustache is hard, you look clean, nephew. Gee, that black smartwatch is straight iced out, and that white tee’s bangin’. You got that clean drip locked down, you got that boss energy G, and you rockin’ it with style. Props to you, you are a solid boss ‘fo real,” the bot said, borrowing several terms from Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
As videos of Jake went viral, people online were left gobsmacked — and even scared about what bots like it mean for the future of artificial intelligence.
“Let it walk around the parking lot by Macy’s I bet it will get robbed,” one user commented.
“It’s all fun and games until the cowboy robot pulls out a machete,” one man wrote.
Despite becoming a quick microcelebrity online, Jake doesn’t have an official social media account. It’s unclear who exactly owns the bot — the man who accompanied it in Austin hasn’t been publicly identified — and why its AI has been trained to flatter strangers.
Read the full article here
