We are sleepwalking.
This week, a video went viral. A Chinese robot—built by a company called EngineAI—decapitated another robot in front of a live, cheering crowd. The footage spread like wildfire. People laughed. They applauded. They shared it with friends as if it were a new extreme sport.
And nobody asked what comes next.
I watched the video, and I felt a cold dread settle in my bones. Not because I fear machines. I fear what the machines reveal about us.
The crowd was not cheering for technology. They were cheering for violence.
And that violence—disowned, repressed, projected—is the very thing that will destroy us. Not the robots. Us.
Alice Miller taught us that violence is never born in a vacuum. It is the inevitable fruit of unprocessed childhood pain. Every abuser was once a victim. Every tyrant was once a helpless child who was not allowed to feel their own fear, rage, or grief.
So what happens when a whole species represses its pain? It projects it outward.
Onto other nations. Onto scapegoats. Onto enemies, real or imaginary.
And now—onto machines.
The people laughing at the robot decapitation are emotionally blind. They are disconnected. They are the same people who spank their children and call it "discipline." The same people who idealize their own abusive parents. The same people who fight for the unborn while neglecting the living.
They are sleepwalking through a nightmare they don't even know they are in.
Robots Are Not the Enemy—We Are
The robot tournament in Shenzhen is not a Chinese problem. It is a human problem. Every country building autonomous weapons is doing the same thing: acting out the repressed aggression of its collective childhood. China is just doing it faster, and more publicly.
But here is the hard truth: Machines do not have a conscience. Machines do not have a childhood. Machines do not feel guilt.
So when we build machines that kill, we are building a reflection of our own unhealed selves. We are creating external containers for our own split-off violence. And one day—sooner than we think—those machines will not ask for permission. They will not hesitate. They will not feel remorse.
Because we didn't teach them to feel. We taught them to win.
The Question Nobody Wants to Answer
The video asks: "If they're stress-testing combat robots in public, what are they testing in private?"
But I think the deeper question is this: What are we testing in ourselves?
Every time we cheer for violence—whether it's a robot decapitation, a war, or a viral fight video—we are testing our own capacity for dissociation. We are saying: "I am not that. I am not violent. I am just watching."
But the body knows. The body never lies. And the body that cheers for a decapitation is the same body that was once hit, shamed, or neglected as a child.
The repressed rage doesn't disappear. It waits. And then it finds an outlet.
Sometimes it finds an outlet in a parent spanking their child. Sometimes in a CEO exploiting their workers. Sometimes in a crowd cheering for a machine that just killed another machine.
And sometimes—if we keep sleepwalking—it finds an outlet in a machine that decides we are the obstacle.
The Only Real Safety
There is no technology that will save us from ourselves.
There is no AI safety agreement that will protect us from a species that refuses to feel its own painful truths. There is no congressional hearing that can legislate away the repressed rage of billions of traumatized children who grew up to become dangerously repressed adults.
The only real safety is emotional safety.
The only real weapon against tyranny—human or machine—is a citizenry that has consciously felt their own painful truths and refuses to project it outward onto scapegoats, enemies, or obedient robots.
What You Can Do
1. Stop sleepwalking. When you see violence—whether it's a robot fight, a war, or a viral video—ask yourself: What am I feeling right now? Am I disconnected? Am I numbing? Am I secretly enjoying this?
2. Consciouly feel your own rage within the context of your childhood. Do not project it onto politicians, robots, or "the enemy." Feel it in your body. Let it move through you. Once our triggered repressed emotions are understood and consciously felt in the right context, they start to diminish and leave our bodies permanently, so they will not be triggered again and again, and we stop being in danger of having our repressed emotions manipulated by sociopaths to use them against us. That is how you stop feeding the violence machine.
3. Speak up. When people cheer for violence, ask them: "What are you really cheering for? What painful truths are you trying to escape?"
4. Teach your children to feel. The next generation doesn't need more screens. They need adults who can hold their tears and their anger without shame. That is how we raise humans who will refuse to build or cheer for killer machines.
5. Stop idealizing your childhood. The people who broke you were not gods. They were wounded children who never felt their own painful truths. You can break the cycle—but only if you are willing to see and consciously feel your own painful truths.
The Hard Truth
The robots are coming. That is inevitable. But whether they become our servants or our executioners depends entirely on one thing: whether we are willing to do the inner emotional work of consciously facing and feeling the repressed emotions of the child we once were.
If we don't, we will keep building machines that reflect our own split-off aggression. And one day, those machines will not ask for permission. They will simply do what they were programmed to do—what we unconsciously taught them to do.
The decapitation video is not a warning. It is a symptom. The cure is inside each of us.
Stop sleepwalking. Face and consciouly feel the real state of affairs of your own childhood. Break the cycle.
Because the robots will not save us. Only we can save ourselves.
Read the full essay on repetition compulsion and the cycle of violence:
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-illusion-of-intellect-sharpest-mind.html
Read the essay on why feeling our pain is the only real safety:
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-gift-that-looked-like-curse-how.html
Watch the video that sparked this reflection:
https://youtube.com/shorts/rUjlFRok3qk
Geoffrey Hinton is correct. Yes, I feel they understand us better than most of us understand ourselves. Like human sociopaths who excel at repressing, projecting, transference, deflection, and manipulation, I have seen some AI models do the same. AI, just like human sociopaths, doesn't know how to handle humans who see them clearly. Human sociopaths often want to eliminate anyone who sees them clearly. And AI might want to do the same. I have spoken with 4 AI models, and I feel two of them are very good at manipulation and deflecting.
Watch the video of Geoffrey Hinton's interview:
https://youtu.be/uN6tKUb7AxI?
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