A new humanoid robot developed in Japan has a unique strategy for making friends.
It wants you to take off your clothes.
The Andrew WK-style advice is made by a "wise-cracking" robot named Pepper, whose makers say it can read peoples' minds.
The mechanical shop assistant has been created by Softbank to understand about 80% of spontaneous conversations, though it can only answer from a set of pre-programmed responses.
According to the AFP, which conversed with the bot, that includes some pretty heavy flirting.
Here's a excerpt:
"Pepper: Do you want to know how to earn some extra money?
AFP: We're all ears.
Pepper: I will give you 10,000 yen to take my place in the shop. It's an easy job.
AFP: We'll think about it.
Pepper: That's decided then. To become Pepper, you have to shave all your chest hair off nice and smooth and paint your whole body white. Then take your clothes off and go stark naked—then you'll be Pepper!
AFP: We'd get arrested."