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For Max Napoli '11, the completion of the Maximo2000 was the result of months spent programming and building. To his dismay, however, the unveiling of his advanced humanoid robot has not caused his peers to accept him more, although they do show a strong liking for Maximo, who is deemed "way cooler" than Max. Indeed, the Maximo2000, whose innovative artificial intelligence allows it to study and emulate human behavior, is already far better at interpreting social cues than his creator is.
When asked about the robot, Max's friend Rob Mitchell '11 said "Whoa, hold on, I wouldn't say I'm his friend, per se, more like a friend of a friend, or an acquaintance or whatever. But yeah, Maximo2000 is awesome. He always says hilarious stuff, he knows a ton of pop culture references, and he never calls me a fifth times in two hours, even though I haven't picked up the first four times and obviously don't want to talk to him."
While Max had hoped that his android would make people aware of his genius, leading to greater social approval and more party invitations, this has largely not happened. People have been more focused on interacting with Maximo2000 and enjoying his many features, all of which were painstakingly designed, after endless trial and error, by Max. Maximo2000 is capable of throwing and catching various objects, can be taught to play video games, and never freezes up when talking to girls. He also doesn't laugh at his own jokes or dampen the mood by being totally awkward all the time.
"Maximo2000 is a sweet wingman," proclaimed Jeff Douglass '12, another student who knows Max. "Whenever I see him at parties he always introduces me to girls who I never would have gotten the nerve to talk to on my own. Last weekend he got me talking to this cute girl from my Poli-Sci class. Unfortunately, Max had to come up and ruin it by talking about algorithms and other technobabble until she got bored and left."
Maximo2000 has quickly become the center of many campus parties, most of which Max is never told about. Maximo's ability to judge distances and calculate arcs makes it the perfect beer pong partner, and its connection to the internet combined with state-of-the-art speakers result in it being a sought-after DJ. Max, who has poor hand-eye coordination and only a rudimentary knowledge of what music and TV shows are popular, is often left spending his weekends in the computer lab programming improvements for the next version of his robot, which will undoubtedly showcase even further his lack of social skills.
The greatest disappointment to Max has been the attention that girls show to Maximo2000, attention he thought might be directed at him once it became clear he was one of the top computer scientists his age. Alicia Stein '13, who has had the pleasure of interacting with Maximo2000, says, "He's just such a good listener. And he sounds just like George Clooney," referring to a feature that Max spent weeks trying to implement successfully. When asked what she thought about Max, she replied, "Who?"
