Last Thursday, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona introduced the following amendment to the U.S. Department of Defense appropriations bill currently in Congress:

None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be obligated or expended for the development of a beerbot or other robot bartender.

This sounds like a joke, but it’s not: Legislation prohibiting Department of Defense funding of robot bartenders is on its way to becoming law. The reason why Senator Flake wants this to become law is based, at best, on a misunderstanding of how basic robotics research works. At worst, it’s a deliberate decision to misrepresent the research for political gain.