Boston Dynamics’ robots have a deservedly bad reputation, spurned on by their deployment as law enforcement and military solutions that lack even the barest shred of humanity. In order to improve this, the company has decided to take an unorthodox approach to humanizing its soulless creations and anthropomorphized them as drunken Boston bros for a new commercial.
The “Your Cousin From Boston” advertisement, made with Sam Adams for this year’s Super Bowl, sees the unholy union of two Massachusetts businesses result in a kegger from hell. In the clip, a pair of security guys crack open some cold ones at the end of a day working at the nightmare factory and are approached by one of those terrible metal dogs (which apparently just walks around of its own accord).
They offer the abomination a beer, which it immediately pounds. It then belches, signaling that it’s time for a party to start. The security dudes are joined by other Boston Dynamics stars, like The Warehouse Freak and The Dancing Parkour Monster.
The humans, foolishly thinking themselves invulnerable, feed the machines more and more beer, dance with them, and chant “RO-BOT, RO-BOT, RO-BOT” as the robots get visibly drunker and drunker. “We’re gonna live forever!” one of the security guys yells, flush with hops and the hubris of a species unwilling to admit that it’s speeding toward terminal decline.