The Seventh Expression of the Robot General (short story): Why Robots Need Facial Expressions (Video

The Seventh Expression of the Robot General is ostensibly a tale of a military robot whose scorched earth policy first wins acclaim and then, over time, he becomes viewed as reprehensible. The general is a humanoid robot designed to physically inspire (and intimidate) troops, and he relies on social communication cues (pose, gestures, eye contact, facial expression, prosody, etc.). He is famous for his facial expressions but at least one of those expressions is inscrutable and no one really knows what it means, perhaps not even the robot himself.