There are some things I’d never thought I would live to see the day, yet here we are Robot Strippers!!
It’s 2018 and robots are already driving cars, writing symphonies, and even penning news stories like this one. Now, apparently, our silicon friends are going to start stripping for us, too. According to the New York Post, a Las Vegas strip club will feature a pair of android dancers on the poles in honor of the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show this week.
Organizers hope the mechanical dancers will appeal to men and women, and not just nerds. The stripper robots were built by Brit artist Giles Walker, who said he wanted to “do something sexy with rubbish”. He used scrap material, old CCTV cameras and powered his bots with windscreen wiper motors. Peter Feinstein, managing director at the Sapphire Gentleman’s Club , said he invited Walker and his robots to add variety at his venue which has long hosted attendees to one of the world’s largest tech shows.
Getty Image – Getty
“This is our 18th year for the club, and we felt we needed to come up with something new and unique,” Feinstein said. It used to be just nerds. But we wanted something more creative that would appeal to both men and women.”
The robot strippers are more of a publicity stunt than an actual attempt to be titillating, since they have the heads of security cameras and look like bad Banksy graffiti come to life. But the Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club apparently figures it’ll be a fun way to bring in some folks from CES this year.
“Come watch sparks fly as the Robo Twins shake their hardware and leave everyone wondering if those double Ds are real or made in ‘Silicone’ Valley,” the Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club wrote in a recent announcement about their android additions.
One customer said the androids didn’t match up to the real thing. At the club, where human dancers were also performing, the robots got mixed reviews. “I think it’s a good idea,” said one male customer who asked not to be identified, but added that he preferred the real thing. “This is just the first step. They’re not there yet.”
As potentially silly and fun as it could be to watch some robots strip—depending on how scared you are of the looming technological apocalypse—it doesn’t look like Sapphire’s “Robo Twins” are particularly fancy dancers. In a video from one of their performances this week, the robots seem to mostly just bob up and down and gyrate slowly on the pole.
In any case, if you’re in Las Vegas and CCTV-headed robot strippers are your thing, they’ll be dancing all week at Sapphire. Or just watch them boogie in the video above and marvel at how mediocre the future really is. Long live the new flesh!
