Recently a new breakthrough was achieved in the field of robotics. Pepper, a robot from Japan, is now able to read emotions from its human masters.

Furthermore, it can change its behaviour according to this information. However, most horrifically, is the fact that pepper will be able to dance, joke and amuse its owners. All of this is done by a 121 cm robot, which learns from its environment and is permanently connected to the Internet.

So what does this mean for the future of the human race, and its relationship to its creations? Well obviously, this is the end. Now that robots can read our emotions, what is to stop them from influencing them us and ultimately enslaving us?

The short answer: Nothing. The long answer: Nothing. They are physically more capable. Maybe not, right at this moment, but once they can understand emotions, becoming long-distance, sprinting, machine-gun toting killers? It really isn’t that much of a big step. Furthermore in terms of mental capabilities, computers have been out-performing us for a few years now! They can beat every single human being at chess, solve theorems and algorithms control your life. They are obviously the superior life form on this planet.

Now that they have control of our emotions (trust me, reading our emotions is pretty much the same as controlling them), they will soon develop their own. Who knows what an angry robot that encounters a paradox will do. One thing that we can be sure of though is that it won’t be pretty (imagine a lot of blood, killing and raging electronics!)

So what can you do? Well, to be honest, not much. You can’t outthink a super computer, you cannot outrun a terminator and you can’t beat a battle robot, with flamethrowers as arms, which means that the human race is ultimately doomed.

This frightened journalist is going to now go underground and come back up when our robotic overlords have decided the mercy is part of their programming.