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Robots Debut In Japanese Theater Production

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the first-the-auto-industry-now-our-actors dept.

An anonymous reader writes "BBC News and CNET Cutting Edge are reporting on a new play starring at Osaka University, in which two Mitsubishi Wakamaru robots interact with human actors and move around the stage. Named 'Hataraku Watashi' ('I, Worker'), the play is authored by Oriza Hirata, a renowned playwright. It focuses on a robot who complains about his boring and demeaning jobs."

75 comments

  1. They wrote a play... by Xerolooper · · Score: 0

    That sounds a lot like my life. Except I unfortunately am not a cool robot. I just like to complain.

    --
    "The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
    1. Re:They wrote a play... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      * Life," said Marvin, "don't talk to me about life."

      * "Come on," he droned, "I've been ordered to take you down to the bridge. Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cos I don't."

      Art imitates ... Art.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:They wrote a play... by Abreu · · Score: 5, Funny

      Marvin the android is part of a comedy series, but if you want to see real tragedy, see the droids in the Star Wars Universe.

      They are self-aware, capable of reasoning and emotion, and yet they are all slaves and no one pays more than cursory attention to them. ...maybe its because they don't rip people's arms out of their sockets when they lose at chess

      --
      No sig for the moment.
    3. Re:They wrote a play... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Marvin the android is part of a comedy series, but if you want to see real tragedy, see the droids in the Star Wars Universe.

      "Humor is tragedy plus time" - Mark Twain

      And no, I don't know where I'm going with this.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    4. Re:They wrote a play... by Xerolooper · · Score: 1

      They are self-aware, capable of reasoning and emotion, and yet they are all slaves and no one pays more than cursory attention to them.

      I always thought that phenomenon made Star Wars more interesting. You wouldn't sit down for a chat with your refridgerator. Even if my fridge has a web interface and tells me the weather and stock quotes. It is the next logical progression that they simulate emotions. The emotions they display are a reflection of their programmer. We all know how acturate the decisions that programmers make are in the real world. Would we still treat them as appliances? ...
      I think we would.

      --
      "The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
    5. Re:They wrote a play... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      That was a terrible post. I'll be sure to come back and re-read it in a few hours.

    6. Re:They wrote a play... by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That always struck me as horrible about the droids as well. I was always surprised more people weren't bothered by it. They're constantly being killed, and nobody even cares.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
    7. Re:They wrote a play... by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Agreed! Personally, I value droid "life" more than I would Jar-Jar's.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    8. Re:They wrote a play... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      That was a terrible post. I'll be sure to come back and re-read it in a few hours.

      Thank you, I'll be here all week.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    9. Re:They wrote a play... by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Marvin the android is part of a comedy series, but if you want to see real tragedy, see the droids in the Star Wars Universe.

      They are self-aware, capable of reasoning and emotion, and yet they are all slaves and no one pays more than cursory attention to them. ...maybe its because they don't rip people's arms out of their sockets when they lose at chess

      More to the point, it sounds like droids tend to develop personalities over time, growing and adapting beyond the standard unit they were when they rolled off the assembly line. The solution? Get the memory banks wiped. Essentially lobotomizing a sentient being so that it returns to being a docile slave.

      I guess what makes this more tricky in the Star Wars universe is that slaves in our world are human, always have been and always will be. There's a huge distinction between them and service animals -- we look down on people who work a horse to death but it's not held to the same criminal standard as slavery and working a person to death. My dad, being a mechanic, looks at abused machines with the same sense of pain as an animal lover looks at a whipped horse. When talking about the machines in Star Wars, you're talking a spectrum ranging from unthinking machines no smarter than one of our cars all the way up to super-human intelligence and everything in between.

      Of course, this brings us back to the old, often-repeated story lines. Slave rebellions were one of the old standbys and a robot rebellion is just gussying up the same old story with rocket ships and ray guns. Funny to think how many scifi story lines have that same premise, everything from Terminator to Matrix to the Butlerian Jihad in Dune.

      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
    10. Re:They wrote a play... by luder · · Score: 1

      Art imitates ... Art.

      I smell a lawsuit coming around the corner.

    11. Re:They wrote a play... by artg · · Score: 1

      I think this is Art imitating Art .. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UbcMgl5yWwA

    12. Re:They wrote a play... by darthdavid · · Score: 1

      Try staying for a year or two, you might actually get to the point where you become amusing...

    13. Re:They wrote a play... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So in a few years we will look back at Star Wars I-III and laugh?

    14. Re:They wrote a play... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The storm troopers are constantly getting killed, and nobody cares--and they're human!

  2. Boring and demeaning jobs... by Cruel+Angel · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... like acting?

    --
    Two Rules For Success:
    1) Never tell people everything you know.
    1. Re:Boring and demeaning jobs... by virgil_disgr4ce · · Score: 1

      "Calculon's Byack!"

      --
      Limina.Log
  3. Robosourcing? by cheap.computer · · Score: 0

    Japanese are creative when it comes to things like this... they have monkeys for waiters, robots for actors...

    1. Re:Robosourcing? by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      just in time for the actor's strike

    2. Re:Robosourcing? by TheWanderingHermit · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but I, Worker? Why not something like Universal Worker, or give the maker a name, like Rotham's Universal Workers?

      Sounds like a remake to me.

  4. It is good... by internerdj · · Score: 5, Funny

    to see Shatner can still find work.

    1. Re:It is good... by hey! · · Score: 4, Funny

      No way. Shatner maybe a sci-fi actor but he is old school.

      What I mean is that he's just not plastic. The stuff of his performances is comprised of natural materials: wood, cheese and ham.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    2. Re:It is good... by D+Ninja · · Score: 4, Funny

      Fark picked Keanu Reeves as the "robot actor." A more fitting pick, I believe.

      Keanu Reeves Happy - :-|
      Keanu Reeves Sad - :-|
      Keanu Reeves Really, Really, Angry - :-|

    3. Re:It is good... by Tetsujin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Fark picked Keanu Reeves as the "robot actor." A more fitting pick, I believe.

      Keanu Reeves Happy - :-|
      Keanu Reeves Sad - :-|
      Keanu Reeves Really, Really, Angry - :-|

      "Whoa."

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    4. Re:It is good... by gravisan · · Score: 1

      robot actor you say? Steven Seagal has it covered! http://forums.cdcovers.cc/showthread.php?t=163274

    5. Re:It is good... by laddiebuck · · Score: 1

      Nobody remember Roger Moore?

    6. Re:It is good... by ThomsonsPier · · Score: 1

      Isn't it an incredible skill he has; to portray all of those emotions simultaneously?

  5. Futurama quote: by gregg · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was all of history's great robot actors - Acting Unit 0.8; Thespomat; David Duchovny!

  6. Chuckee Cheese by Shotgun · · Score: 4, Funny

    But does it have the production value of the singing bears at Chuck-ee Cheese? I am glad to see the Japanese are catching up, though. (I jest. I jest!!)

    --
    Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
    Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
    1. Re:Chuckee Cheese by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You kid, but...

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur8AwQHusZw

    2. Re:Chuckee Cheese by 0xABADC0DA · · Score: 1

      Even the robot bears find Chuck-ee Cheese boring and demeaning.

    3. Re:Chuckee Cheese by Shotgun · · Score: 1

      Ok. You got me. I thought I was being funny. Please moderate my original post as: Sad. So very, very sad.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
  7. Motherboard by gmuslera · · Score: 1

    Wonder if it complains about having its brain the size of a plane.

  8. I for one welcome old meme. by GMonkeyLouie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone looking forward to the day that robots become better at acting than humans can ever be? Don't need their own stunt doubles, can be actually destroyed on camera after showing something that passes for human emotion, will work for whatever salary they're programmed for... Think people will care that they're not real?

    1. Re:I for one welcome old meme. by Abreu · · Score: 3, Funny

      Perhaps robots are not yet ready for artsy european films, but I think you could stick a couple of RealDolls in the cast of a soap opera and no one would notice...

      --
      No sig for the moment.
    2. Re:I for one welcome old meme. by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      By the time that happens, CGI will be more than good enough that it isn't necessary to build an actual robot. Even if people's opinion of CGI gets more critical to match improvements in the technology, it's unlikely that actual, real robots are going to be able to do any better.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    3. Re:I for one welcome old meme. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh god, chunks of apples were never meant to go through the human nose.

    4. Re:I for one welcome old meme. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about movies with real actors? Acting with a CG entity is HARD, if you haven't seen Star Wars I-III. Likewise for a lot of other films, but believable acting is hard to accomplish without two physical entities. A robot actor that can manipulate/wear props and roughly fill the void of the CG character or entity is far superior to pure CG. Especially for sci-fi movies featuring extremely advanced robots - a simple "acting robot" today could be overlaid with CG, generating both believable acting and high-quality visuals. Right now, getting a CG character to pass an object to a real person usually requires a poorly-disguised cut. I'm sure most people don't notice the cut, but I sure as hell do, and it's one of those annoying film quirks (like cigarette burns on the frame) that always catches my attention.

  9. Douglas Adams? by irishdaze · · Score: 1

    It's a shame that descriptions in popular literature don't count as "Prior Art".

    --bows to Douglas Adams--

    We are not worthy!

    --
    -- Dedicated Cthulhu cultist since 1982 A.C.E.
  10. Life imitates art once again by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darfsteller

    As good a read now as it was in 1955.

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  11. Poor Arnold... by lessthanpi · · Score: 1

    Sadly there will be another Terminator for the Governator, as he will be replaced by a real terminator.

    --
    One man with a gun can control 100 without one
    1. Re:Poor Arnold... by Coraon · · Score: 1

      Futurerama quote - The professor - "he will ran on a platform of not killing people, unfortunately like all politician's he couldn't keep his word."

      --
      -Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
  12. In the future there will be robots by nfgaida · · Score: 1

    Do they dance in an interpretive manner?

    --
    *elevator music plays*
    1. Re:In the future there will be robots by ShadowBlasko · · Score: 0

      Damn . You beat me to it!

      /Runs off to listen to the Medieval Millennium Faire commercial.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
    2. Re:In the future there will be robots by nfgaida · · Score: 1

      Love those commercials.

      --
      *elevator music plays*
    3. Re:In the future there will be robots by somersault · · Score: 1

      I'm glad there are at least two other well cultured slashdotters around ;)

      --
      which is totally what she said
    4. Re:In the future there will be robots by nfgaida · · Score: 1

      Apparently no moderators though.

      --
      *elevator music plays*
    5. Re:In the future there will be robots by somersault · · Score: 1

      I used all my mod points this morning :(

      --
      which is totally what she said
  13. Sounds familiar... by sancho_pancho · · Score: 2, Funny

    It focuses on a robot who complains about his boring and demeaning jobs.

    So it's about Marvin?

    1. Re:Sounds familiar... by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 1

      This is a pre-history of marvin and these robots are some of his earily ancestors.

      --
      âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
  14. Better than... by i.r.id10t · · Score: 1

    Better than complaining about the diodes down its left side aching...

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  15. Really just a prop, isn't it? by Gizzmonic · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is really just the same thing as using a puppet, except more expensive.

    Of course, people say the same thing about Keanu Reeves...

    --
    (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
    1. Re:Really just a prop, isn't it? by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      This is really just the same thing as using a puppet, except more expensive.

      this will be the great debate in our future

    2. Re:Really just a prop, isn't it? by Gizzmonic · · Score: 1

      Goddamnit, someone stole this line for the FARK submission.

      Then, I guess it was pretty obvious, so I'm withdrawing my patent claims.

      --
      (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
  16. PLEASE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please, no Robotic Thespian Overlord jokes! ... for just this one post ...

  17. Complains about its boring life? by slimjim8094 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to take you to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction, 'cause I don't.

    --
    I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
  18. But will they be any good? by supernova_hq · · Score: 2, Funny

    Everyone walked out. They hated it. I've seen plagues that had better opening nights than this. You said that Oscar was practically on my mantle.

    1. Re:But will they be any good? by drodal · · Score: 1

      that's why I used the word practically......

  19. Stairs by tripdizzle · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This looks like a badass robot and of course I want one, but from the pictures, I don't think that it would be able to go down stairs to well.

    --
    "A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." Hayek
    1. Re:Stairs by astrodoom · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's made to utilize gravity in a very efficient way for just such a problem.

    2. Re:Stairs by tripdizzle · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and after that you will be utilizing its warranty for the robotic suicide of falling down the stairs.

      --
      "A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." Hayek
  20. Popular literature is "Prior Art" by giafly · · Score: 1

    While it's not an obvious source of comedy, internationally-recognized patent law is actually a rather funny thing. Just ask Danish engineer and inventor Karl Kroyer, whose method of raising sunken vessels from the ocean floor failed to obtain a patent because of a comic strip.

    The German patent office denied Kroyer's claim based on the patent law concept of "prior art," which essentially means you can't patent an idea that someone has publicly described in the past, even if that idea wasn't patented.

    Geek Trivia

    --
    Reduce, reuse, cycle
    1. Re:Popular literature is "Prior Art" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also read on slashdot that they couldn't patent the waterbed because Heinlen described it in a sci-fi story.

      So, fiction is propr art. According to slashdot at least.

  21. It's a fake! by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ever see "Victor, Victoria", where the title character (Julie Andrews) got rave reviews as a female impersonator because she actually _was_ a woman pretending to be a man? How long before some robot actor gets lauded for being "so lifelike, just like a human", and then we discover that it's really a human actor inside a robot suit? Weren't there actually people inside CP30 and R2D2 (at least in some shots)?

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:It's a fake! by Khisanth+Magus · · Score: 1

      I'd like to think that technology has improved somewhat since then.

  22. Rossum's Universal Robots by Michael+Meissner · · Score: 2, Informative

    Of course since we get the word robot from Karel Capek's 1921 play where the robots were the serf labors, it isn't that far of a stretch for the new production: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R._(Rossum's_Universal_Robots)

  23. EngineerBot by eabrek · · Score: 1

    The robots should build automated workers to do their tasks for them!

  24. Robot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.mhi.co.jp/kobe/wakamaru/english/know/safety/shototu.html

  25. Isn't David Duchovny a robot already? by ExtraT · · Score: 1

    AKA "Acting unit 2013", "Fespomat" and "Calculon"

  26. Prior Art? by ArrantPrac · · Score: 2, Funny

    Robots performing Japanese theater? It's been done before... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa-Kx5M-8Ak

  27. No actors as robots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kitajima Maya's next role?