“The future that scares me is not a robot uprising led by robots, but one led by billionaires.”

James Vincent explores the opaqueness of the robotics industry and the deceptiveness of its marketing. Kicking robots, it turns out, is “something of a pastime among roboticists”—an efficient way to test balance that generates anxiety only in observers worried about future retribution. The real concern isn’t machine rebellion but that governments are “unwilling or unable to constrain the power of the capital classes, and humanoid automation will only strengthen their hand.”