Robots are in advertising, but these sales robots are just computer graphics, like the robot in this Logitech Harmony remote ad:
(This robot is having a frustrating day)
LG Electronics is also getting in on the act; this is from an ad campaign related to last year's Olympics.
(Feeny the robot salesman)
I include this robotic pitchman because I find it so annoying; Intel builds actual devices, so why are they presenting a CGI robot?
(Intel's Jeffrey an ominous sign)
These robots are just the beginning. In his 1954 short story Sales Pitch, Philip K. Dick illustrated a terrifying future of robot salesmen that are real robots:
Robot-salesmen were everywhere, gesturing, pleading, shrilling. One started after him and he quickened his pace. It scurried along, chanting its pitch and trying to attract his attention, all the way up the hill to his living-unit. It didn't give up until he stooped over, snatched up a rock, and hurled it futilely. He scrambled in the house and slammed the doorlock after him. The robot hesitated, then turned and raced after a woman with an armload of packages toiling up the hill. She tried vainly to elude it, without success.
(Read more about Philip K. Dick's sales robots)
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A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'