When robots bring out the best in us (via Passle)

Robots get a pretty bad rap in the press. Unflatteringly portrayed as the source of mass job losses, creepy humanoid interfaces, or racist customer service chatbots, robots are now also lumped in with a faceless entity otherwise known as AI--squillions of lines of invisible code, often working against human interests. This is a far cry from the affection elicited by other, more three-dimensional robots in our pop culture. R2-D2 is beloved by generations of Star Wars fans, with K-2SO considered a breakout star of the recent Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Robots inspired our imagination as far back as Frankenstein's Monster, as mirroring human qualities, although not quite--just a wide enough gap that we can make them outcasts, or our servants, or our militaristic disposables.