This article was published on August 9, 2016

A robot tattooist could make you think twice about getting inked


A robot tattooist could make you think twice about getting inked

In further proof that robots are here to steal our jobs, a new industrial robot could soon be tattooing you. On one hand, you don’t have to undergo hours of small talk about what that Nyan Cat on your inner thigh really means to you on an existential level. On the flip side, it’s a fucking robot brandishing a sharp object and stabbing you repeatedly.

A duo of French designers, Pierre Emm and Johan da Silveira, and an Autodesk engineer, David Thomasson, teamed up to build the robot artist after the success of a previous creation, Tatoue — a 3D printed tattoo gun.

The new creation is a more sophisticated version of the same thing.

Accuracy when getting tattooed by a robot is unparalleled. Unlike its human counterpart, the robot doesn’t make mistakes. It’s programmed using a 3D scan of the area where the tattoo will be placed and then the tattoo is designed using mockup software. Once it’s set up, the robot goes to work.

It’s not a perfect solution, though. The robot doesn’t understand human movement like your local tattoo artist. To compensate, you have to be strapped to a table to remain perfectly still. Imagine that for a second, strapping yourself to a table while a reject from the Toyota assembly line punctures your skin and injects ink subdermally.

Although undeniably cool, I don’t plan on being the guy strapped to the table when the robots take over.

via Cnet

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.