Featured Image Credit: Stuff Made Here / Youtube
Topics: Technology
Emma Guinness
Getting a haircut is a pretty normal activity, but thanks to technological developments, hairdressers of the future could look very different from what we're used to.
Case in point, this hairdresser, which is actually a robot, and just like its human counterparts is able to make small talk while on the job.
The robot was created by YouTuber and engineer, Shane Wighton, who explained that he didn't like the way normal hairdressers operated.
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"I would rather not have someone cut my hair who's also touching 100 other people's heads all day long, so I built this robot," he explained.
As you can imagine, getting a robot to be able to cut hair was no mean feat, as it could only hold a pair of scissors.
This meant that Wighton had to train his robot to separate out sections of hair and then cut it, which he did using a tube that sucked it up a section at a time.
"Every time the robot goes to cut a location, it probes to find where my head is at and the length that it cuts is relative to where it's probed," the engineer explained.
"This is the main reason it could maintain accurate hair lengths even though I was moving around."
But when the robot made small talk and asked if Wighton's partner would be up for having her hair cut robotically, he said 'absolutely not'.
This is perhaps an understandable decision.
As you can imagine, TikTok users had a lot to say about the hair cutting robot.
Reacting to the video, one joked: "What if the robot just decides to stab both your eyes [sic]."
"Urgh," added a second. "It still makes small talk? What's the point?"
"Bro make him do a brade [sic]," wrote a third, while a fourth suggested: "Take out the small talk feature, that's the main reason I would go to a robot barber."
"There goes another job," said another.
But while some people weren't sure of the robot, others were big fans.
"Now I want a robot haircut so much!" exclaimed one person, who was clearly a fan.
"I need this... this could save me so much on haircuts over the long-term," wrote another.
What do you think of the robot hairdresser? Is it a great idea or has the future gone too far?