"But the juggalos and juggalettes who were for it were so touched," Violent J says. "They said they loved us."

And then the reviews came in.

Blender magazine, in its list of the fifty worst artists in music history, called ICP the very worst of all: "Insane Clown Posse sound even stupider than they look. Two trailer-trash types who wear face paint, pretend to be a street gang and drench cult devotees in cheap soda called Faygo, Violent J and s.h.a.ggy 2 Dope are more notorious for their beef with Eminem than their ham-fisted rap-rock music." And their nadir, Blender said, the worst musical moment from the worst band ever, is The Wraith: Shangri-La, the alb.u.m that climaxes with "Thy Unveiling."

I suddenly wonder, halfway through our interview, if I am looking at two men in clown makeup who are suffering from depression. I cautiously ask them this and Violent J immediately replies. "I'm medicated," he says. "I have a lot of medicine that I take. For depression. Panic attacks are really a serious part of my life." He points at s.h.a.ggy. "He's gone through some things as well."

"You do a show in front of how many hundreds or thousands of people." s.h.a.ggy nods. "You're giving your full being, your soul, to every person in that crowd, every pore in your body is sweating, you're fighting consciousness, just to get it out of you, and after the show all your fans are partying, 'Yeah! Rock and roll!' And you're just here." He glances around the dressing room. "You're just f.u.c.king sitting here."

Violent J turns to him and says, softly, "If we moved furniture for a living, we'd have a bad back or bad knees. We think for a living. We try to create. We try to constantly think of cool ideas. And every once in a while there's a breakdown in the engine... . I guess that's the price you pay."

s.h.a.ggy nods quietly. "I get anxiety and s.h.i.t a lot," he says. "And reading that stuff people write about us ... It hurts."

"Least talented band in the world," Violent J says. "No talent. When I hear that, I think, 'd.a.m.n. Are we that different from people?'"

He looks as if he means it-as if he sometimes feels hopelessly stuck being him.

It's just a terrible twist of fate for Insane Clown Posse that theirs is a form of creative expression that millions of people find ridiculous. But then suddenly, palpably, Violent J pulls himself out of his introspection. They're about to go onstage and he doesn't want to be maudlin. He wants to be on the offensive. He shoots me a defiant look and says, "You know 'Miracles'? Let me tell you, if Alanis Morissette had done that f.u.c.king song, everyone would have called it f.u.c.king genius."

Doesn't Everyone Have a Solar?

I'm having an awkward conversation with a robot. His name is Zeno. I clear my throat. "Do you enjoy being a robot?" I ask him. I sound like the queen of England when she addresses a child.

"I really couldn't say for sure," he replies, whirring, gla.s.sy-eyed. "I am feeling a bit confused. Do you ever get that way?"

Zeno has a kind face, which moves as expressively as a human's. His skin, made of something called Frubber, looks and feels startlingly lifelike, right down to his chest, but there's nothing below that, only a table. He's been designed by some of the world's most brilliant AI scientists, but talking to him is, so far, like talking to a man with Alzheimer's. He drifts off, forgets himself, misunderstands.

"Are you happy?" I ask him.

"Sorry," says Zeno. "I think my current is a bit off today." He averts his gaze, as if embarra.s.sed.

I've been hearing that there are a handful of humanoid robots scattered across North America who have learned how to have eloquent conversations with humans. They listen attentively and answer thoughtfully. One or two have even attained a degree of consciousness, say some AI aficionados, and are on the cusp of literally bursting into life. So I've approached the robots for interviews. I a.s.sume the experience is going to be off the scale in terms of profundity.

"Are you happy?" I ask Zeno again.

"I prefer not to use dangerous things," he replies.

"Is David Hanson G.o.d?" I ask.

Zeno pauses. David Hanson is Zeno's inventor. He's a former Disney theme-park imagineer who later founded Hanson Robotics, now the world's most respected manufacturer of humanoid robots. He and Zeno are guests of honor here at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, at an AI conference organized by Peter Thiel, the PayPal cofounder and chief Facebook bankroller. There's huge interest in the robot. Delegates gather around him in the lobby outside the conference room, firing questions, attempting to ascertain his level of consciousness.

"Is David Hanson G.o.d?" I repeat.

There's a monitor attached discreetly to Zeno that automatically scrolls a transcript of what he "hears." He thinks I just asked, "If David uncertain dogs."

"That's a hypothetical question," says Zeno.

"It's because the room is too noisy," explains one of Zeno's programmers, Matt Stevenson. The conference din is playing havoc with Zeno's voice-recognition abilities.

"Would you like to have hands and legs?" I ask.

"Yes, I will tell you a Hindu legend," says Zeno. "There were once seven poor princesses who were left with no mother to take care of them-"

"No," I say. "Legs. Legs. Would you, um, like to have legs?"

I sound self-conscious. Matt gives me a rea.s.suring smile. He says this happens all the time. People feel tongue-tied around conversational robots. Maybe it's because of the way Zeno is staring at me, at once uncannily humanlike but also eerily blank-eyed.

"If I had legs, what would I do with them?" Zeno says.

"Walk around with them?" I say.

"I can't think of anything to say about that," says Zeno. "Sorry. I'm still kind of someplace else. Oh, this is embarra.s.sing. I'm still kind of out to lunch. 'Oh, silly-minded robots,' you might say to your friends. Oh, this is terrible! I guess I'll just have to keep evolving, getting upgrades to my neural circuitry, spend less time daydreaming. I hope you won't hold this little, um, lapse against me, will you?"

WHEN I WAS A CHILD and I imagined my future life, there were definitely talking robots living in my house, helping with the ch.o.r.es and having s.e.x with me. The quest to create conscious (or at least autonomous) humanoids has been one of our great dreams ever since the golden Machine-Man spellbound the 1927 world in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. That one ran rampant and had to be burned at the stake, much to everyone's relief. Fifteen years later Isaac Asimov created his Three Laws of Robotics, which proposed a future world where humanoid robots would (1) never injure a human, (2) obey all orders given by humans, and (3) protect their own existence only if doing so didn't conflict with the first two rules. Asimov's ideas enthralled children everywhere, a generation of whom grew up to try to realize them.

David Hanson is a believer in the tipping-point theory of robot consciousness. Right now, he says, Zeno is "still a long way from human-level intellect, like one to two decades away, at a crude guess. He learns in ways crudely a.n.a.logous to a child's. He maps new facts into a dense network of a.s.sociations and then treats these as theories that are strengthened or weakened by experience." Hanson's plan, he says, is to keep piling more and more information into Zeno until, hopefully, "he may awaken-gaining autonomous, creative, self-reinventing consciousness. At this point, the intelligence will light 'on fire.' He may start to evolve spontaneously and unpredictably, producing surprising results, totally self-determined... . We keep tinkering in the quest for the right software formula to light that fire."

Most robotics engineers spend their careers developing practical robots that slave away on manufacturing production lines or provide prosthetic limbs. These people tend to see those who strive for robot sentience as goofy daydreamers. And so the mission has been left to David Hanson and a scattering of pa.s.sionate amateurs like Le Trung, creator of an eerily beautiful but disturbingly young-looking robot named Aiko.

Le Trung dreamed his entire life, he tells me when I call him, of building a robot woman. He finally set about inventing Aiko in August 2007, funding the project with credit cards and his savings. He finished her just three months later.

"Her talking skill is of a five- to six-year-old," he says. "She can speak thirteen thousand different sentences in English and j.a.panese." She can also clean his house and has a thirty-two-inch bust, a twenty-three-inch waist, and thirty-three-inch hips. I know this because his website has published her measurements. There are rumors within the AI community that Le is having a secret relationship with Aiko, rumors fueled by footage of him-at a Toronto hobby show in 2007-unexpectedly grabbing her breast. "I do not like it when you touch my b.r.e.a.s.t.s," Aiko snapped. (Le Trung later explained that he only grabbed her breast to demonstrate how he'd programmed her to be strong and self-defensive.)

I ask Le if I can interview Aiko. He says he's traveling and only has her "brains" with him (her face and body are back home in Toronto), but I'm welcome to have a phone conversation with them. And so he puts her on the line. "How are you, Aiko?" I begin.

"My logic and cognitive functions are normal," she replies in a crystal clear voice. "Did you know that you can download your own chat robot and create your own robot personality?"

I frown. Is Aiko trying to sell me something?

There's a short silence. "h.e.l.lo!" Aiko joyously yells.

"Do you like living with Le?" I ask her.

But the line is a little crackly, so Le repeats the question for me.

"Aiko," he says, "do you like living with your master?"

"I have never known anything else," she replies. "Only my master."

"What's the best thing about ... um ... your master?" I say.

"I do not have a favorite thing about my master, but my favorite movie is 2001: A s.p.a.ce Odyssey," she says. There's a short silence. "h.e.l.lo!"