Can a Robot Write a Symphony?

Submission 49,931

Part of a series on AI / Artificial Intelligence. [View Related Entries]

About

Can A Robot Write a Symphony? is a memorable line from the 2004 science fiction film I, Robot. Online, screenshots and dialogue from the scene has been used in a series of memes usually captioning the response of actor Will Smith as a punchline.

Origin

On July 16th, 2004, the science fiction film I, Robot was released in the United States. In the film, homicide detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) questions a robot regarding the murder of its owner. During the scene, Spooner asks the robot, "Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a… canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?" The robot responds, "Can you?" This leaves Spooner with a dejected look on his face.^[1]

On July 9th, 2012, a clip of the moment was uploaded to YouTube ^[2] by YouTuber FHEfoxconnect. As of January 2018, the video (shown below) has received more than 700,000 views.

Spread

On September 8th, 2013, Tumblr ^[3] user zohbugg posted a series of "gifs" of the moment. They added the comment "snap" written several times to form a "Z" shape. The post (shown below) received more than 605,000 notes in four years.

One month later, Redditor ^[4] fartacular shared the images of the gifs in the /r/funny subreddit. The post received more tahn 2,400 points (94% upvoted) and 1,300 comments in four years.

Several months later, on February 13th, 2014, FunnyJunk ^[5] user milankohoutek shared a screen shot of the tumblr post and received more than 1,400 upvotes and 52,000 views in four years.

On April 13th, 2015, Tumblr^[8] user posted Guess who’s about to write a fucking symphony. The post received more than 216,000 notes in three years. The post led to an exchange with another Tumblr user named mrzona in which they posted elements from the movie (shown below, left)

On January 13th, 2017, Redditor^[6] meatbased5nevah shared a four-panel variation of the moment in which the robot asks about the differences between man and human in the /r/vegan subreddit. The post (shown below, center) received more than 3,900 points (64% upvoted) and 740 comments in one year.

On January 12th, 2018, Redditor^[7] Shaponja posted a variation in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit in which Will Smith says, "I will never go out with an ugly girl." The post (shown below, right) received more than 130 points and 10 comments in 24 hours.