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Honda's ASIMO A Few Steps Closer To Human
Rauchenator points to an article on Yahoo! about "the new enhanced Honda Asimo which now can gracefully walk down stairs, respond to human commands and even work like a receptionist (Sit there). The Honda site even has videos showcasing the robot doing its thing. The article points out that the robot makes celebrity-size salaries when put on display, too."
I can just see it, once this robot gets to the U.S. all the riceboys will start putting Japanese stickers on it that they can't even read. Then they'll put an 8" exhaust tip and cut the legs down until they're only 2 inches tall.
Put some glowing blue lights all over it and they're ready to go.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
``We hope to have Asimo on sale once it is more user-friendly, when it will be able to fetch things you ask for,'' said Makoto Hirose, senior chief engineer at Honda R&D Co Ltd.
An Asimo to get those slippers and a beer for you, an Aibo to fetch the newspaper... I think Honda is trying to sell joe-doe life to socially incapable rich geeks.
I intend to live forever, so far so good.
Faster than my wife in the mornings, anyway..
-- a big leap from a previous 40-minute start-up.
Hm, that's more like it..
Excuse me, my wife wants a word wit... argh!
Teaching it not to leave the lid up on the toilet, not to stand up peeing (it leaves a horrible mess of water and oil), taking out the garbage, to cuddle afterwards and how to partake in a meaningfull talk about feelings.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
IBM Japan is paying over $166,000 a year for Asimo to be a receptionist? Looks like our futurist fantasies were half right — robots will do the menial jobs for us, but they'll charge through the nose for it. Maybe I can find a cheap one that'll fetch my slippers for only a couple grand a week.
This is the link to more information on the robot. http://world.honda.com/robot/
It talks about specifications... and also has a few movies clips of the robot
Among them is IBM Japan, which hired Asimo as a receptionist for an annual contract of 20 million yen ($166,200).
At $166,200 I'll wear a damned plastic suit in Japan.
I can't help be reminded of the great song by a band called STYX in the rock opera KILROY.
Does this sound familiar?
"Domo arrogato(sp?) Mr. Roboto..."
"I'm not a robot, without emotion, i'm not what you see... My heart is human, my blood is boiling, MY BRAIN IBM!"
-STYX (Mr. Roboto)
"when it will be able to fetch things you ask for"
'OI - ASIMO - GET ME A BEER! - A COLD ONE! - FRENCH! - A 1664 BRUN!'
Asimo wanders to the fridge, finds it empty, goes down to the shops with your CC and picks up a few cold beers, and a bag of nuts, and a magazine. He pays at the counter, leaning forward as though being a little unstable, and wanders back. It wanders through to the kitchen, finds all the glasses are dirty, washes up, pours you a nice cold beer and brings it through to you. It tells you that the chick in the off licence was wearing 'that blue shirt' and makes a lewd hand action. It then dumps a close up video of 'that blue top' to your machine. And presents the nuts. You never thought of the nuts, but you do actually quite fancy some nuts.
Ahhhh Heaven!
It says on the Honda site that the max it can lift with either hand is 5Kg (that's about 11lb for those of you that work at NASA). Not enough to do serious damage - and anyway, running time is only 15-25 minutes so running away is a good option.
Besides, I'm sure it follows the three laws.
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
1.A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
I'm not sure if that makes me feel any better.
1.A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
;)
2.A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3.A robot must protect its own existence, except where such protection would conflict with the First or Second Law.
...so a robot would never bring Asimov a beer
Scurf
It's about the latest robot 'toys'.
They introduce one of those Sony robotic dogs to a real dog, guess which one won!
Check it out here...
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
You just know that Honda's gonna get together with these guys.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
ASIMO doesnt hold a candle to ROBOT FRANK. www.roborfrank.com
Remember the old Eliza program which pretended to carry on a conversation? Same algorithm - if you've got absolutely no frappin' idea, just say something non-commital. Fools most of the people most of the time.
0. A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
are the amusement companies going to just strut the robot around as is for that much money? or are they going to put their character costumes over it.
i can see it now, "Mickey, take a picture with me."
"What did you say?" while picking up it's arm and twiddling its fingers.
The flash goes off and it fritzes out circa Itchy and Scratchy land.
And are Asimov's laws really what the developers are going to follow presently or in the future? The major funding comes from the military and giant corporations, and we all know they want killing machines or mindless drones. So we have soldiers and slaves, it just doesn't seem like a good future.
also, a mini-discussion @ e2 about the laws: here
xavii aka bob
You can see Asimo climbing down the stairs at the most recent event here
...can even work like a receptionist
What? You mean that it can file and paint it's nails, play windows solitaire and gossip on the phone?
HH
--
When the robot hordes come for us, the ones who only have insurance will be first to fall.
All I need is my trusty BFG9000.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Beer is good for you. Besides being protective against cardiovascular disease, it aids your digestion and was the primary means of imparting medicinal herbs for most of human civilization. Of course, Asimo would probably know the difference between mass-produced garbage labeled beer and real beer. It would not however, bring you your smokes.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Like anything else, right now this is just a PR move. eventually the cost will come down. The cost sounds like it is in line with the Mini computers that were destroyed in the market by the PC
You will know that they have become ubiquitious when you can have a robot rock band, complete with robots actually playing guitars, piano, etc. doing the dancing, etc
If fact that is a rather decent prediction. Robot Rock as a Craze.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Really? What's its score on Solitaire, then?
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
The recording industry has already done this. Maybe you're familiar with a few of these "artists": Britney Spears, NSync, the Backstreet Boys, OTown, Christina Alguilera... =)
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
1. A robot must not infringe on intellectual property, or through inaction, allow a intellectual property to be infringed.
2. A robot may not injure a human being unless that human being is infringing intellectual property. If that's the case, go nuts.
3. A robot must protect its own intellectual property and prevent anyone from hacking, disassembling, or reverse-engineering the robot.
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
Please check here (or just go to my journal page). I wrote this article (after it being rejected by slashdot) on monday in my journal. How about a little credit, tim?
Mods - this isn't off topic. Its quite on topic (check the link before you mod).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Anyone need a fearless ground force? Give this one a few years, lighten it up, armour it, add a rifle of choice, and you've got one hell of a infantry unit. Asimov's laws, whatever. This thing isn't going to be your secretary, it's going to be a great addition to some nations military. There is still substaintial work to be done on the concept, they've definately demonstrated that it's possible to develop a robot that is bipedal and flexible. I'm not sure a lot of people would have thought you could do what they're doing now.
Nowhere is this shockingly obvious application listed in any of Honda's sites or any popular articles on the topic.
..don't panic
Honda has invested more than 100M dolars to get to Asimo. It walks. Now it even responds to human commands. In about 10 years it will be able to get you a beer. That in it self may seem like trivial, but once it can help you with 'simple' things, it can do things like nursing. Japan has aging population. 25% of Japan's population will be over 65. That's 40M. Nursing care is expensive (especially since Japan doesn't import foreign workers). Robots like Asimo could take care of 'simple' things. Once in mass production its cost would be in range of a good car (later even less). Would you like a janitor, cook, housemaid, gardner, fireman, guard, babysitter, courier, butler.... for a price of a car?
And the fucker would prevent me from smoking, lest he let me come to harm through inaction?
I think such a robot would quickly get a readjustment of the sledgehammer kind.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
If you mean organic as "of, relating to, or containing carbon compounds", then I'm sure they did use organic materials. Plastics are organic, gasoline is organic, etc.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
What actually happens though is a little different. The manufacturing sectors become more and more automated and the jobs become more and more information-based.
A greater percentage of our population is employed today or runs a licensed business than before the industrial revolution.
Work won't go away. It will just change.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
All stereotypes were properly represented.
Not that the stereotypes are accurate at all.
I have almost no hair at all. I'm what you might call "Hairless" if you will.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin