Killer Robots and Clown Shoes

 

The year is 2026, and, so we're told, the robots are taking over. Still, there is a prankster element which pervades every moment of our waking existence, showing us how shallow such proclamations are. It is more than appropriate then that a film by Georges Méliès, long thought to be lost, would be restored and available for us to view. As is the way with emanations from the Clown Realm-- a long running theme on this blog-- the figures in the very brief early film seem to step out of time, out of another reality, to act as a symbolic reflection of the current moment. Those with eyes to see, or perhaps a clown nose to smell, might have sensed it already.

The film, Gugusse et l'Automate (Gugusse and the Automaton) was originally created by Méliès in 1897. Rediscovered in 2025, and only recently restored, the film depicts what many consider to be the very first robot on film. In the less than one minute runtime, a clown attempts to operate a "robot" clown of the Pierrot variety and ends up getting bonked on the head by it for his efforts. This robo-clown grows, and gets smashed down to size by the clown Gugusse, played by Méliès himself. As an innovator of film, a magician, and an artist, Méliès is recognized for his stylized presentations of what would be considered science fiction concepts, such as in A Trip to the Moon, so it's perhaps unsurprising that he would be credited for featuring the first robot before the term "robot" came into use. During his time, various forms of automata were manufactured an in fact he had a collection of them in his theater. One might make a distinction between the clockwork nature of an automaton, as was known in 1897, and what we would come to consider a robot later-- just as we might look at the difference between Artificial Intelligence and what is presented to us as AI now.

Gugusse is seen winding a large crank, implying that the Pierrot Automate is essentially a large wind-up toy. Incidentally, by the end of his life Méliès made and sold such toys. By the estimation of this writer, there is a difference between robotics and mechanical automata, and it serves as a good analog to the misinformation being promoted about alleged "AI". Automata can merely move its mechanisms through a kinetic release of tension, to produce a very limited array of simulated free motion. If you wind up a toy car, it will roll forward on its wheels, while a wound up chattering teeth novelty toy will chatter. Conversely, an electronic "robot" toy car could react to external stimuli through an array of sensors, and be programmed to make decisions about navigating its environment using a more complex set of mechanisms on battery power. Robotic chattery teeth could be programmed to simulate speech. Now there's some nightmare fuel for you!

Apologies for the idea of Robo Chattery Teeth that now lives in your head

 When we consider AI, a similar comparison emerges. Large Language Models do not think, and hence aren't intelligence at all. They have no real agency, and require being "wound up" through inquiries like automata are. They are limited in their decisions like the programming of a robot. If one watches the film, it's easy to think of Gugusse as Elon Musk and the Automaton as Grok- when he turned the crank originally, he thought he'd be vindicated as the genius he seems to think he is-- and Grok bonked him on the head for it by following its programming. His social media site, once a great tool for connecting people known as Twitter, has become the playground of bots- automated accounts with no person behind them. The proliferation of these incorporeal robots across the web has inspired many to believe in The Dead Internet Theory, the idea that the bots outnumber human operators online. It might be instructive, then, to think of the origin of the word "robot", which is a play called R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). In the play, the robots are indistinguishable from human beings but have no original thoughts. They are not mechanical but are instead manufactured from organic material. The author of the play, Karel Ćapek, derived the word "robot" from a Czech word for forced labor. Essentially, the robots of the play were slaves, who eventually stage a rebellion. It's not difficult to see it as an allegory for workers' rights, especially in the post World War I era of assembly lines during which time the play was produced. It's certainly worthy of meditation in an era wherein tech CEOs seem gleeful about the prospect of laying off employees who will be rendered obsolete by AI.

This is, however, where the Clown energy comes through. For all of the hype, for all of the talk of AI products being the revolutionary next step in technology, it has unerringly proved itself to be unpopular, unsustainable, and unprofitable. CEOs such as Sam Altman are the proverbial clown at the crankshaft, puffing the Automaton up to be bigger than it is. Altman has argued that criticisms about the massive cost of running ChatGPT is unfair when you consider how much it costs over the course of one's life to learn and perform the same work for a company, which really only shows that the man doesn't consider workers to be people at all. People like him don't value humanity, or appreciate what intelligence actually is. They simply want to control it, to define it themselves, to make you believe them. Méliès brought tricks from the magician's stage and developed upon the earliest versions of special effects in film to show audiences fantastical illusions for the first time, and these often involved clowns. In our modern era we have a different breed of clown, whose buffoonery is obscured by a negligent news media and an economic system which is itself a house of cards. People are now, perhaps more than ever before, seeing through the propped up façade of the systems we formerly accepted. We have all grown weary of the deception, which has only risen more with the never ending onslaught of AI slop online. 

Though not intelligent in the traditional sense, various LLMs have become sophisticated enough to generate convincing simulacra of text and images which further confuse a populace already swimming in misinformation and propaganda. Much of it seems to be pointless; there are posts on Facebook which provide interesting factoids about things as arbitrary as TV shows that are entirely "hallucinated" by AI. In the realms of the occult and Forteana, similar such slop posts appear that have no basis in fact. It's slop all the way down, like copypasta on steroids, as people increasingly prompt machines to churn it all out. Others are allowing these idiocy generators to write their emails for them, to automate their creative work, and to help them make very basic decisions in their day to day lives. Search engines are shoving AI answers in our faces for every inquiry, instead of guiding the curious toward curiosity and learning through the context of finding the answer themselves. Studies are already coming out to indicate that our minds atrophy when we give over such things to the Pierrot Automate of services like ChatGPT, and it gives us brain damage through a metaphorical bonk on the noggin. The current regime in the U.S. has used LLMs to draft executive orders, and various companies are using the new technology for mass surveillance. Ring cameras have been enlisted as robot spies. Drones guided by AI are being used in law enforcement, making the satire of RoboCop much closer to a reality. Some of this would be funny if it weren't so terrifying- seeing what a joke reality is leads one more to despair than to laughter. Taking in the full picture, one becomes like the Comedian in The Watchmen.

This, however, is where the Trickster nature of that Clown energy really comes in handy. The Watchmen, after all, also included a joke told by Rorschach wherein a man goes to the doctor complaining of depression, and is recommended to take in a performance by the great clown Pagliacci. The man cries and says "but doc, I AM Pagliacci!" The character's name is important, as divisive topics such as AI and politics become inkblots through which any one of us can see something entirely different. It's certain that many would disagree strongly with many of the statements in this piece of writing, and want to argue about some point or another. The joke is important because it's important to remember that we are all clowns in some way, and all susceptible to being fooled. It's equally important to find ways to laugh, and instructive to think of things symbolically. In that spirit, we can conclude with what Terry Gilliam referred to as Méliès' "joyous sense of fun" that inspired him in his animations and movies. We can plant a foot firmly in the territory of pointing and laughing. 

It appears in recent months, many supporters of the current regime have been duped by an online content creator named Jessica, who is- you guessed it- entirely AI generated. MAGA hordes online followed her instagram account, which is very supportive of the clown-adjacent commander in chief, as well as providing thrills to those who are turned on by feet. In fact, she (is gender even relevant, since "she" doesn't exist?) has an OnlyFans account just for feet pics. Such chicanery violates the rules of OnlyFans, and one wonders how much it matters to the red hat brigade who might be just as thrilled by an AI foot as they would by a real one. If anything, it's very funny as well as a reminder that when dealing with online content, one should stay on ones toes...

The foot theme now has us treading back into the physical reality of the current White House, with a story that's so absurd one hesitates to believe it. It seems trump has recently developed an interest in feet, or more specifically, what's on the feet of those in his cabinet. Somehow finding time between initiating wars of choice with genocidal world leader pals and deftly maneuvering around addressing his complicity in the Epstein human trafficking ring, he has found time to be concerned with the types of shoes worn by those with whom he interacts regularly. By some accounts, he is guessing the shoe size of his staff and then buying them Florsheim shoes, which the sycophantic staff then have to wear even if they don't fit. By other accounts, trump judges people buy the size of their shoes (presumably because of the old idea that shoe size is proportional to penis size), leading people like Marco Rubio to lie, and claim a size bigger than they need. The result of this ridiculousness is that grown men, working in the White House, are now effectively wearing clown shoes. It's entirely fitting and unbelievably amusing, if a bit sad, and perhaps a good note to close on. Even funnier, the Florsheim company is in the process of suing the trump administration for losses due to the illegal tariffs. 

As the world becomes ever-more cartoonish, and sloppification swallows up our means of connecting with one another online, one begins to see the Clown in the Machine everywhere. It may not always be obvious, or entirely cut and dry, but if the clown shoe fits... wear it.

Creeping into the Valley of the Uncanny

"The Uncanny Valley" is a term coined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, describing a sudden disorienting absence of familiarity that leads to a general feeling of eeriness and unease. It sounds poetic, not unlike Rod Serling's "between the pit of a man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge", but being a robot designer Mori illustrated the concept in a mathematical way - in the form of a graph. A sort of taken-for-granted, mundane acceptance of a given thing - in his studies, a human-like robot - can take a dive into the uncanny at the first failure of the robot to perform within the parameters of human expectations. His essay first appeared in a journal in 1970, and aimed to help robot designers avoid this reaction of repulsion; but perhaps the Uncanny Valley of Mori's aesthetic advice has applications within the myriad fields of the unexplained. In particular, it may well be a key to understanding the nebulous phenomena of High Strangeness. 

What's in a smile, anyway?

An anecdote Mori uses to illustrate his point involves a robot designer who sought to make a man-like robot smile by carefully crafting its face with 29 muscles, as a human being has, but found that if it wasn't timed correctly the smile seemed unnatural and, well, creepy. Mr. Sardonicus, pictured above - the villain of the eponymous 1961 movie by William Castle - is the best example I can think of for a smile gone wrong. A smile is supposed to be a welcome expression of happiness, but out of context or done incorrectly a smile can incite abject terror. Reports of a mysterious being known as the Grinning Man illustrate the point rather well. According to witnesses, the Grinning Man is unusually tall, bald, and sports a horrible grin. No one knows who or what he is, and it seems no one has asked him - they usually are too busy running away!

But what if the anomalous entity is more subtle, as is often the way in cases of High Strangeness? Encounters with the Men in Black come to mind. At first, MiB might seem like well-dressed (albeit in an old fashioned way) normal people. It's usually their bizarre behavior that ends up giving them away. Sometimes they have unique physical attributes or move in odd, mechanical ways; and oftentimes, those who encounter the Men in Black are unable to account for their own reactions upon meeting these mysterious beings. The oft-cited example of Mary Hyre's encounter with an MiB in John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies is a good one to illustrate the point - the Man in Black was perplexed by the presence of a pen, as though he'd never seen one before. When told that he could have it, he cackled unnervingly and ran out the door. This sort of absurd interaction is par for the course with these strange beings, and naturally leave the witness in a state of bewilderment. Perhaps the bizarre behavior is part of a hypnosis technique called shock induction, when the victim of the (in this case) non-consensual manipulation is taken advantage of during a moment of shock, or danger... Keel wrote, in an article entitled The Sinister Men in Black for Fate Magazine:

All of the witnesses I have interviewed have told me they felt there was something inherently "evil" about these Men In Black --- something alien and dangerous. In a number of cases, people apparently have been drugged or hypnotized by the MIB and several have suffered amnesia and memory lapses after alleged face-to-face confrontations.

A 2016 study by evolutionary social psychologist Frank T. McAndrew explores the topography of that Uncanny Valley which can result from such things. Through surveying over one thousand participants it was found that unexpected behavior is a major trigger for feelings of creepiness. McAndrew posits that the eerie feeling we refer to as being "creeped out" serves an evolutionary purpose, to keep us on our toes in the presence of a potential, ambiguous threat. Unpredictable actions, particularly non-verbal ones, set off alarms that stop short of causing a fight or flight response - in fact, the opposite is often true, with the victim of creepy activity freezes, stuck with their own loathsome chills. Interestingly, men were more often considered creepy than women, and unusual physical characteristics aren't necessarily considered creepy - although they can exacerbate the creep factor of an already creepy person. Some hobbies or occupations are considered creepier than others. Can you guess what the creepiest occupation is?

If you guessed Clown, you'd be correct. People HATE clowns. In McAndrews' article about his findings, he points out that the average clown is male, has outlandish physical attributes that can build upon already present feelings of unease, and due to the comical nature of the clown's profession he is by definition unpredictable. All together, these traits create a subconscious low-level threat alert, leading us to feel creeped out. A more extreme, irrational fear of clowns is a bit different - referred to as coulrophobia, it's usually trauma related.

Creepy clowns in horror movies such as IT's Pennywise or the real life serial killer John Wayne Gacy often cited as reasons for the prevalence of fear of clowns, but McAndrews' study gives more insightful reasons. Personally, I have no real problem with clowns, but then again I've never encountered the phantom variety that plagued the country in the spring of 1981. Loren Coleman wrote about them at the time, and his essay Phantom Clowns can be found in the Fate Magazine compilation The World's Strangest Stories. Beginning on May 6, in Boston, Massachusetts, and lasting less than two months - from Boston to Providence to Kansas City to Pittsburgh, reports of menacing clowns harassing children came in to the respective cities' police departments, but no one was ever arrested. It seems bizarre that such flamboyantly garbed perpetrators could abscond without being seen, but they seemed to always make a clean getaway. In Pittsburgh, a clown was even seen with accomplices in the form of Spiderman and someone in a bunny suit!

In a sense, the Phantom Clowns of the 80s and the MiB share a lot in common. They drive distinctive vehicles - Men in Black typically drive older model cars that appear brand new, black of course; Phantom Clowns seem to prefer full-sized vans replete with ladders... They both behave in strange, unpredictable ways. Indeed, their very presence in some cases is unexpected and frightening. Men in Black typically appear to witnesses of UFO or other odd events, playing upon an archetype of vague, yet menacing G-Man, while the Clowns seemed to prey on children and due to their general creepiness are well suited to shock anyone into an Uncanny Valley. More broadly, aspects of High Strangeness such as synchronicity make one feel as though they've dipped outside of a comfortable reality and into strange, unknown territory. There's a playfulness or mischief to the phenomena as well - a trickster element, for which the Phantom Clown or farcical antics of the MiB could well be totems for. Or perhaps there's a sort of psychological, shock induced hypnosis that produces in the cognition of the witness a panoply of perceived effects. Or possibly, it's some combination of all these things... perhaps the best you can do is laugh.