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Robots Debut In Japanese Theater Production
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."
... like acting?
Two Rules For Success:
1) Never tell people everything you know.
to see Shatner can still find work.
Art imitates ... Art.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I was all of history's great robot actors - Acting Unit 0.8; Thespomat; David Duchovny!
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
Wonder if it complains about having its brain the size of a plane.
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?
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darfsteller
As good a read now as it was in 1955.
I am officially gone from
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
Do they dance in an interpretive manner?
*elevator music plays*
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.
It focuses on a robot who complains about his boring and demeaning jobs.
So it's about Marvin?
Better than complaining about the diodes down its left side aching...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
"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!
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)
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.
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
It's made to utilize gravity in a very efficient way for just such a problem.
That was a terrible post. I'll be sure to come back and re-read it in a few hours.
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.
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
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.
Geek Trivia
Reduce, reuse, cycle
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.
just in time for the actor's strike
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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)
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.
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
The robots should build automated workers to do their tasks for them!
Art imitates ... Art.
I smell a lawsuit coming around the corner.
AKA "Acting unit 2013", "Fespomat" and "Calculon"
I think this is Art imitating Art ..
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UbcMgl5yWwA
Try staying for a year or two, you might actually get to the point where you become amusing...
Robots performing Japanese theater? It's been done before... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa-Kx5M-8Ak