Weird feeling at the climax scene

I thought that this was a case of the robot coercing Frank to erase his memory. Kind of like when he and Frank were hiking and the robot said "what about me Frank if I fail". Robot revealed later to Frank that he basically manipulated him to get him to do what the robot wanted. I think that is what happens here.
I do find it ironic that both the robot and Frank will manipulate those around them, though Frank's motives are purely selfish, and the robot's are only to help Frank.

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I think it was more about Frank finally realizing something about himself, how obsessed he had been with doing these burglaries all his life and that he actually even made this robot, which was sent to care for him, help him commit these crimes. I think he felt bad. The reason why he didn't want to erase Robot's memory wasn't because he would need to teach it all those things again, he didn't want to erase Robot's memory because it had become a friend.

It's a film about memory, and Frank doesn't want to be remembered solely for being a burglar - he wants to be remembered as a father. So he turns off the robot (which can ONLY remember, not imagine the future) and turns to his family. Broadly, I think the film is saying that technology can help us along the way, but it is human beings who are there at the beginning and the end.

Castanz, I think you mean 'good insight.'
'Incite' means to stir up or ecourage unlawful behavior.

Hello,

I was also a bit confused about why this peculiar dialog leading Frank to change his mind.
Then I gave it some thoughts, and here what I concluded :
- for Frank, that Robot is like his son (a few times he's talking to it like it's Hunter)
- when Frank taught the Robot how to be a thief he said with what sounds to be some regrets that he never taught that to his son
- when the Robot said all that back to him, he understands that if it would have been really his son, then his son would have been like him : a thief, a criminal
- he didn't want things to be like that, so he accepted he should erase its memory

In the last scene, when talking about Princeton with his son, he says "My son did better than his old man" that shows he didn't want his son to be a thief and his pride of what he achieved.

Am I stretching things too much ? Or does it make sense, is it what the director intended to say ..? :-)

I didn't even imagine, that Susan character was who she was

As observed elsewhere, the Robot was quoting Frank word-for-word. He was trying to convince Frank that Robot was dangerous to Frank unless Frank rebooted Robot. Why? Because Robot had verbatim memory. Unless Frank had changed Robot so much (in RAM, not in ROM) that Robot could/would lie, then under interrogation or deposition Robot would reveal so much about Frank's ambitions and techniques and maybe even plans as a jewel thief that there would be no doubt that Frank had indeed stolen the asswipe neighbors' jewelry.

If there was a hidden message, it was that one of the lead astronauts in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was named "Frank." The onboard computer, HAL, talks to Frank and tries to convince Frank not to disable HAL. Further, there are times when the voice of Robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) either accidentally or purposely sounds very much like HAL. Just not all the time, and just not completely. Which, for me, makes it more of an in-joke than a message; but that's just semantics.

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