1) Dave interfaced a dot matrix printer with his macbook – pure genius
2) the analysis Robby conducts is based on actual data that it aggregates
3) the social commentary associated with a project like this

David notes this description on his website:

Robby the Racist Robot is a playful way for people to consider our mass collection of data and information, and how it can be used or mis-used depending on its context. The scanner gathers a skin tone sample and links the profile to a country of origin based on a pigment chromatic scale from the early 20th century. The system then loads and parses through X number of databases filled with up-to-date statistics for your country. For example, if 40% of the population is female, the system uses an algorithm and 40% of the time will determine you are female and 60% of the time you will be male. This is done with all of the statistics before speaking and printing the information. Obviously this will result in stats that are incorrect, and different, every time but are still based in fact.

I’m amazed that Robby aggregates all the data to perform its calculations. And while the machine misinterprets the “conclusions” it comes to, I wanted to share this project in case it could inspire Bill Turkel at Digital History Hacks or others to think of similar ways a project like Robby could be created (and interpreted correctly) using historical data. Further information is at David’s website.