Martial Arts Robots 301
curmudgeous writes "Japanese tech firms are making waves with robots trained to perform martial arts moves." On one hand, this is largely just a novelty, but on the other, robots capable of doing these moves are many steps closer to being able to move around in real world environments. But mostly, sumo stomping robots look cool.
Interesting Linux wording (Score:3, Interesting)
"therefore runs" is an interesting choice of words by the writer. Does it imply that Linux now has a reputation as a scientifically-orientated OS?
Interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
They were talking about the differing perspectives between japanese robots and US ones - where the japanese are going after the humanoid approach and the US robots tend to be designed around a specific task.
There was a quote from Joe Engelberger "The Father of Industrial Robotics": "Robots dont need a mind of their own" and he states that Robots don't need to have human-like ambulatory abilities (legs) that "wheels are fine for most applications"
The first though that jumped into my head was, seriously, "Ya, but how are they going to do martial arts!"
The thing is that if we are going to build a super army of TX-thousands - then we need to begin work on bipedal humanoid robots and get them advanced enough to the point where they can accomplish fantastic feats of human movement like Gymnastics.
It may sound troll-ish but I am serious. I think that through the teaching of Robots to be able to move in the full range of motion that the human body is capable of - that we will learn a great deal about ourselves.
For instance there is something that I am really interested to know - how much your mind has control over your ability to accomplish certain moves. Take martial arts as a perfect example - as a machine - the human body is capable of a great many things - we can move in fantastic ways. But there are times when you see humans moveing in "Super-human" ways. How much of the "Super-human" is mind - and how much is actual application of physics.
I would love to see a robot that was physically designed to be as complex as a human in movement - meaning being able to be as soft, hard supple and dexteritous as someone like say, jackie chan. Then get jackie chan to wear sensors that would translate and transmit all movements to a robot which would mirror his every single move.
Would the robot be able to have as fine control over its balance as Mr Chan would? would the robot be able to actually do some of the moves without falling over - or would they be indentical?
I beleive that we will find out that there is a lot more to our movements than jsut pure mechanics and straightforward physics.
Uh, oh! (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the key virtues to the internet is that no one knows you're an idiot until you open your mouth, so why the urge to walk up to an enemy with a rifle and say, 'hey, I think you dropped these bullets?'
Second, holy spit! Robots posessing that degree of physical dexterity are really frightening.
Before that article, it was easy to imagine that the writer from How Stuff Works.com was writing a distant, pie-in-the-sky scenario when he talked about anthropomorphic robots capable of replacing people in jobs. Seeing a robot, smaller than a midget human, and so dextrous that it can approximate sumo or Tai-Ji moves makes you think of applications for the near-term.
Can a team of them spot-weld hard-to-reach places in automobile assembly with the power problem of individual units solved by a 'chaining' or 'tag-team' system that replaces each one that runs down with others given the same instructions that are charging in nearby racks?
Could industrial versions be used for remote visual inspection tasks in ships, planes and architectural crawl-spaces and will future designs incorporate spaces that can only accomodate them saving space in each?
Is the technology behind this degree of articulation adaptable to use in pre-existing technologies like hard-shell diving suits?
Currently, approximately three million Americans are employed in agriculture with an efficiency so great that government subsidies are needed to make comodity production a viable industry. What happens to world markets when all the labor of farming in the United States is done by a million robots, working day and night, serviced by ten-thousand technicians?
With first-world price protections in commodities strangling third-world agriculture today, full mechanization would make the situation much worse in the future.
The possibilities boggle the mind and as more and more technological glitches are solved and as some designs turn away from anthropomorphic models, it is pretty easy to imagine many technologies which simply cut the human out of the manufacturing equation altogether.
Capitalism worships efficiency and with a sufficient capital outlay it its disposal, it is easy to see a massive influx of robots changing the picture of how the world works, either by completely destroying much of labor's value, or by freeing up huge numbers of people to dream and build and organize and create higher things.
Considering the lust for power and dominance that seems built in to the organism, it is very hard to imagine machines decreasing the bargaining power of labor leading to increased freedom.
In other words, 'uh oh.'
Re:I for one... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody, not even the Japanese (even at their most paranoid moments worrying about gaijin invaders 'taking over') needs a robot that does martial arts moves. Not even as a demostration of programming and manufacturing skills. This is stupid.
The Japanese have a little game called 'let's do some silly little thing and watch how pissed off the stupid gaijin get over nothing at all'. They'll something seemingly innocent like making Little Black Sambo dolls for children and then pretend that they're amazed that this would annoy anyone outside Japan. The winner of this little game is the person who can get the most inflamed reaction from the foreigners to what must appear to any normal Japanese person as the slightest and most trival provocation.
This might be the latest invocation of this game.
The way for foreigners to win this game (or as in ju-jitsu, to turn the opponent's force against themselves) is to hold a press conference and announce your disappoint and shame that your Japanese friends would have forgotten that this could have had such unpleasant overtones.
Then at the end of the press conference, hold up a leather handbag and say that the Japanese are the best leather workers in the world. And that it must be a natural reflection of their culture that they are so great with leather work.
Traditionally, in Japan, working with leather and animal hides (along with undertaking and working with death) is only done by a sub-class of untouchables call buraku-min.
By implying to the Japanese that they are the buraku-min of the world, while appearing to the rest of the world to be giving them a complement would make you the winner of the 'little game'.