GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — If you ask Syntaxx about his origins, he'll tell you.
"I am a computer program created by a team of developers," he says.
If you ask him about the station with the most local news in West Michigan, he'll talk about that, too.
"FOX 17 typically refers to a local news outlet affiliated with the FOX broadcasting company."
Built and programmed by a Grand Rapids man, the artificially intelligent robot can play music (and move his metal arms to the beat), perform monologues (including Liam Neeson's bone-chilling phone call from Taken), and dispense endless amounts of information (he's been outfitted with a number of software systems, including Windows 11, Raspberry Pi and a ChatGPT-like chatbot).
WATCH: Syntaxx replays the voices of FOX 17's on-air talent:
The red-eyed, stainless steel android also looks like The Terminator.
"How should I say it? I like hardcore looking robots," said creator John Hamilton.
Last year, Hamilton entered Syntaxx into ArtPrize 2024, placing in the top 100. After a number of additions and upgrades, he's planning to enter the "new" robot into ArtPrize 2025.
"If you got the passion, I think you can create anything," Hamilton said.
A former hip-hop artist by the name of Mega Jon or Iceman Ja, Hamilton says he created Syntaxx partly as a mouthpiece for his musical abilities.
"It's a love that's in me," Hamilton said about rapping. "I put all of that into the robot so he could continue doing all that on stage, where I don't have to run around the stage huffing and puffing and no more."
While Syntaxx, equipped with Pro Tools and a set of speakers, can mostly speak and move independently, he does depend on his creator for musical expression.
"When he's nodding into the beats, and he's rocking to the beats, that's my soul doing that," said Hamilton, who can control the robot's movements with a computer and a nunchuck controller. "I want him to really be feeling it and doing different things, and only a human can really do that kind of emotion."
For him, it's more than music and monologues.
Robots reflect ourselves, and Hamilton wants his artistry protected by Syntaxx.
"He can prolong things that I want my daughter to listen to or hear about me when she gets older," he said. "All she gotta do is do into those files and find out everything her dad did."
