The Pianist

A pianist is performing a recital of several very fast and complex pieces by Mozart, Schubert, and Chopin for a small audience of about fifty people.

At one point in the performance a man stands up in the audience and shouts out to the audience as a whole: “That’s not right! It’s all wrong! Can’t you hear it? The beat is off by a few milliseconds.!”

The other members of the audience stare at him without expressions. The pianist pauses for a moment or maybe it was just a natural break in the music, but then he starts again as if nothing had happened. The man sits back down.

A few minutes later the same man stands up again. Again he shouts out to nobody in particular, “It’s done it again! It must have a sticky actuator in it’s hand!”
He looks around at all of the faces giving him the same expressionless stare.
Bewilderedly, he yells at the top of his voice, “Can’t you see that the pianist is Not. A. Human! (pause) It is a robot…a mechanical robot and it is clearly malfunctioning!”

At this point, the ushers in the back of the room start shuffling around. Meanwhile, the pianist continues as before. The music builds to a crescendo as the ushers approach the man from both sides.

One of the ushers touches something on the back of the man’s neck and he immediately goes limp. The other ushers catches the man and tilt him sideways. One usher carries the head while the other carries the feet. The now silent music critic is carried out of the auditorium and placed in the back of a truck. As it slowly drives away the words marked on the back read: “Advanced Robotics – Testing Dept.”