I, for one, welcome our dancing, robotic overlords
Posted on January 12, 2005 @ 11:55 am
Yahoo! News reports on the latest harbinger of humanity’s doom:
Promet the robot puts best metal foot forward to preserve ancient dance
TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese researchers said they had turned a humanoid industrial machine into a master of Japanese traditional dance in a bid to use a robot as a guardian of cultural heritage.
The 1.5-meter-tall robot HRP-2 Promet, which looks like an animation character wearing a visor, shuffled its gray metal feet and waved its hands in the air in synch with a woman in a kimono. Katsushi Ikeuchi, a professor of engineering at Tokyo University, said the robot, which is usually used at construction sites, was taught traditional Japanese dance to preserve the art for the future.
Maybe Promet was tired of seeing humans do “The Robot” and decided to turn the tables on us. Meanwhile, if a robot can learn an ancient Japanese dance, what’s to stop it from learning an ancient Japanese martial art? I think we can all see where this is heading: upstoppable ninja robots. When are these scientists going to learn? Thanks a bunch for doing your part to usher in a dystopic robot-dominated future, guys!
Posted by Jess | Filed Under Geek, In the News |
6 comments so far...
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Would it be cheaper to just record the lady doing the dance and burn it to a DVD for cultural preservation?
I’d prefer that the Japanese design my doom rather than, oh, the French.
Dunno about you, but I’d rather die at the hands of a robot doing some really cool Kung-Fu than some guy named Pepe who just smokes a lot.
Andy would think something like that.
Andy: DVD will eventually be replaced by new digital media, but robots are forever.
I just watched I,Robot last night! very freaky, but talk about your ninja robots!
Hold your horses, people! The robot has only done a Japanese dance. That’s step #1. Mechanized kung-fu ninjas is so step #11. If it can do the Macarena, then I’ll be worried.