Regular readers of this site know that I am not a fan of robots.

They creep me out and they’re becoming way too advanced.

YouTube’s recent reaction to robot-building and robot fighting videos is disturbing in a different, but adjacent, way.

It identifies robots as living, breathing things that deserve our protection.

I blame Sophia for this. Once people started treating it like a human being, it was only a matter of time.

According to Business Insider, YouTube removed many videos from the video streaming platform.

Multiple YouTube creators, including many who have been contestants on the TV competition BattleBots, received emails from YouTube notifying them that some of their robot-fighting videos have been taken down from the platform. According to these robot builders, YouTube wrote to creators that their videos were taken down for showing “the deliberate infliction of animal suffering or the forcing of animals to fight.”

“Today is a sad day,” one affected robot maker, Jamison Go, wrote on Facebook. “Robot builders across the world cried out in agony as YouTube’s algorithm falsely identified personal videos of robot sport as ‘animal cruelty’ and ‘cock fighting’. Today I lost nine videos but others lost hundreds or more.”

…Another creator, named Sarah Pohorecky, told VICE that one of her videos was recently removed, and that her account was given a strike for violating YouTube policies.

YouTube has said that this content was mistakenly removed.

With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call. When it’s brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it. We also offer uploaders the ability to appeal removals and we will re-review the content.

Either this means that YouTube cannot identify dangerous content, or it thinks robots aren’t machines.

This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with an autonomous streaming platform looking out for its robotic friends.

Now, please enjoy this video of two robots fighting before it’s taken down and they’re taken into protective custody:

[source:businessinsider]