- There's a robot company up on a hill
in this small coastal town in the south-west of England.
They got in touch with me and asked
if wanted to come and look at their robots.
And I said, "Oh yeah, I've heard of you,
"you make really impressive robots,
"but they're not really that much of a story for my channel on their own."
So I said, "look, one of the things you do
"is you make robot doubles of people
"for shows and attractions and publicity stunts.
"Could you make a robot double of me?"
And they said they could...
but it would cost quite a bit of money.
- We create humanoid robots
such as the ones behind me.
Entertainment, communication and education
are the main use cases for this type of robot.
We've been creating robots for over 15 years,
and in that time the technology has obviously progressed.
Robothespian was our first humanoid robot,
and that was very plasticy.
After Robothespian, we started to create Mesmer.
Mesmer is our ultra-lifelike-looking robot.
So it has the skin, it's painted like a human, we have hair,
and then we also dress them like a human,
and they're of the human form.
And then when we created Ameca, our newest robot,
that's when we thought: we need more facial expressions.
So we increased the number of motors in the head.
There's more brow movements, it's got inner and outer brow,
we've got a nose wrinkle,
and we've got better movement in the lips.
The problem we have is the uncanny valley.
You get that uncanny resemblance, but it's not quite right.
And again, it's not just the what-it-looks-like,
it's also how it moves.
And that's where it gets creepy,
that's where it gets scary.
We can create any person in robot form.
So we can create a Mesmer of you or anyone.
- Okay, so I want them to build the robot double,
not as a permanent thing, but it'd be great as a one-off,
like, that's a great video idea.
But what would I do with it?
And besides, even just the parts and labour
for making the big mask and attaching it to
an existing bot for one day's filming...
that's not cheap.
So back in 2019, I did a video
about the advertising for VPNs, virtual private networks.
If you watch much YouTube, you will probably have seen
an advert for VPNs at some point.
And in 2019, some of those adverts were...
well, "lying" is a strong term,
but certainly stretching the truth a bit,
and I made a video about that.
Turns out that video worked better than I thought,
no one's making those claims anymore.
I have heard rumours
that there were several quite awkward conversations
between VPN companies and the people advertising for them.
That video changed the industry, it changed how VPNs were sold.
And it also cut me off from being able to advertise them.
Partly because companies were wary of me,
partly because a lot of people didn't quite pay attention to the video.
I wasn't saying VPNs were bad,
just that VPN advertising was bad.
There are valid reasons to use VPNs,
I said so in the video.
"Those are valid uses of VPNs."
But I burned that bridge, I couldn't advertise VPNs.
You've probably already worked out where this is going by now?
Inside the robot factory is my double,
and it's going to do the sponsor read for me.
I haven't met it yet.
A few months ago, I was here to get my head 3D-scanned,
but that's all I know.
I haven't even seen a picture of the final result yet.
I'm just going to take this GoPro camera in on a stick,
and meet myself.
- So to create the Tom Scott bot,
we actually got Tom Scott to sit in a scanning rig,
took a scan of Tom,
and then we 3D sculpt that.
So first we clean up the scan,
3D sculpt the actual person that we are creating.
And then when we've got that,
we have to design the mechanics that fit inside.
We have a 3D printed skull, over the top of the mechanics
which of course are made out of metal.
The Tom Scott bot is head and shoulders only.
So we got his head, we got a neck,
but there's no body underneath.
Once we created the robot, we'd scan that robot again,
and using that scan we know exactly the range of motions of the robot.
We then do a video of the person,
or get some reference videos of the person,
and try and match their little here-and-there
with the mouth and the eyes.
Everyone's different the way
they actually express themselves, we try and match those.
- Hello?
- Hi Tom, how are you doing? - How are you?
- Yeah, good thanks.
- A bit nervous!
- Are you ready for this?
[laughs]
- I honestly, I don't know how I feel about this.
I really, I really don't.
You said it was through there on the right.
- It's through here, so go ahead, you first.
- Okay.
Oh, that is weird.
[laughter]
That is really, wow.
[laughs]
Do you want to take that camera?
That is, oh wow.
I actually sort of rehearsed things to say at this point.
Uh, no, I... wow.
That is...
[laughs]
it's going to be even weirder when it's got my voice
coming out of it.
Who did the artistry on the skin, 'cause the air brushing,
however it's printed, airbrushed... how do you do it?
- Yeah, it's actually silicone paint
and our creative guy, Mike, painted your whole skin.
And then each one of those hairs, is a human hair,
and each one is individually punched one by one by hand.
- Good grief. That is...
- Yes.
- I think more so for me.
- Yes.
- Because I, like this is not looking into the mirror,
this is looking into a very weird mirror.
- Yes, exactly. When you look into a mirror,
you see a mirrored image of yourself.
This is not a mirrored image, this is the other way.
- Oh! It is.
- It's always going to look even more weird to you.
- Yeah.
It just did a thing,
and I assume it's just on a cycle right now.
- It is at the minute, yes.
- So it just did a thing where it just looked at me,
and for a moment I made eye contact,
and just from... there!
Just for a moment, my brain went: "person".
- It's alive.
- It just, it hit that for just a second in my head.
- There's moments when I just look at it
from an angle... from this angle? My brain goes, "that's me".
[concerned noise]
Ah, I just...
[laughter]
It's really rare that I'm lost for words, and I...
this is such a surreal experience.
Right, okay, let's do the advert.
- Okay, cool.
- Off we go.
- There are good reasons to use a VPN,
and I recommend NordVPN, who are sponsoring this video.
In some countries, it's legal for your internet provider
to slow down your connection
depending on what you're looking at,
or to record what sites you visit
to build up a creepy advertising profile about you
that they can sell.
NordVPN can stop all that.
Or maybe you're on the road, travelling to another country,
and still want to watch the shows that you're used to.
NordVPN can give you a spoofed location
in any of 60 countries, so you can get around region blocks.
- Although you should check the streaming provider's
terms of service first, okay?
- NordVPN has been consistently highly rated.
They've been transparent about security
and they've been in the business for years.
With their software, you can turn on an automatic Kill Switch.
If your VPN connection drops for any reason,
it'll block your device from accessing the web,
so nothing leaks out.
It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android,
and it works on them all at the same time.
You can have up to six devices connected simultaneously.
- I don't know why you'd want to have six devices connected simultaneously,
but if you want to, good luck, it'll work.
- If you go to nordvpn.com/tomscott,
you'll get the best deal they're offering,
even if you're watching this video far in the future,
when robots like me have taken over the world.
- Sorry, what?
- And right now NordVPN has a 30-day money back guarantee.
So if it turns out not to be right for you,
no worries, they'll refund you.
That's nordvpn.com/tomscott.
- All right, I think that's a wrap, folks. Let's shut it down.
- What?
No, no, no, there's more.
NordVPN's servers are diskless,
you can support this channel by the signing up.
[slowing] You can, you can... ♫ Daisy, Daisy... ♫
- Thanks, I think I prefer it like this.