Why does this conversation sound so familiar?

Two New Yorkers geek about how advanced the dance programming should be in robots appearing in the near future. This exchange reminded me of the heated discussions I used to have with an ex over why Star Wars's C3PO was so physically stunted, but obviously had mad programming in the synapses department to have so many emotions while Star Trek's Data was fully articulated but no one bothered to build his brain big enough to experience emotion on a human level. Raise your hand if you really believe that the child Anniken Skywalker was a programming GENIUS... that's what I thought. Why was this even a topic of conversation? And DON'T get me started on the David character from AI: Artificial Intelligence versus Data, we'll be here all day!

Um, Shouldn't We Find Some Girls to Talk To?

Hipster #1 with thick-framed glasses: Yeah, he could do the robot [does crappy robot dance].
Hipster #2: You are so lame.
Hipster #1: No, it's funny.
Hipster #2: It's not realistic.
Hipster #1: It's supposed to be how a robot would dance. What's not realistic about it?
Hipster #2: Yeah, so a robot programmed well enough to have a dance function would do what you just did...
Hipster #1: Probably.
Hipster #2: If they were to program a robot human enough to have a dance function it would have to be incredibly advanced and I don't think an incredibly advanced life-like robot would be programed with such stiff moves. They would almost certainly give him at least slightly groovier moves.
Hipster #1: I think you're thinking of a super advanced robot. I mean, we're just talking about, like, a robot that appears in the next decade.

--Hipster dance bar

Overheard by: Brian D. Adams

via Overheard in New York, Mar 3, 2007

P.S. Don't send me nasty comments about Data's emotions being resident on a chip. Everyone knows that the reason he didn't use the chip was because it would melt his brain.