Robots Everywhere

March 14, 2004 5:01 PM

Now Toyota enters the robot race. Honda's humanoid robot, ASIMO, is such a splash, Toyota is entering the race, making robots designed to assist the elderly and incapacitated, and play trumpet with artificial lips. Shouldn't the US be making humanoid robots too? What do you really want your robot to do?
posted by kablam (21 comments total)

Not make me permanently unemployed?
posted by y2karl at 5:20 PM on March 14, 2004

Shouldn't the US be making humanoid robots too?

Well, when they make cars as good as the Japanese do, maybe then they can get started on the robots.
posted by kindall at 5:32 PM on March 14, 2004

What do you really want your robot to do?

The gang and I could use an extra hand for our bridge game...
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:36 PM on March 14, 2004

What do you really want your robot to do?

Nuance.
posted by trondant at 5:44 PM on March 14, 2004

This is America we're talkin' about right? I think it's pretty clear what we'd want our robots to be like.
posted by Wulfgar! at 5:48 PM on March 14, 2004

Super Toys that Last all Summer
posted by Keyser Soze at 5:58 PM on March 14, 2004

What do you really want your robot to do?

blowjobs.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:48 PM on March 14, 2004

robots?! i want a hot, sexy replicant.
posted by titboy at 6:54 PM on March 14, 2004

you know what would be good--a little bathroom/kitchen scrubbing robot--with toothbrush arms for the grout maybe?
posted by amberglow at 7:00 PM on March 14, 2004

a little bathroom/kitchen scrubbing robot

I'm puzzled. Why would you need a robot for that, when there are already Bathroom Monkeys for that sort of work?

Surely you wouldn't want a bathroom that's only robot clean when you could have a sparkling MONKEY-FRESH bathroom that's the envy of the neighborhood?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:27 PM on March 14, 2004

What do you really want your robot to do?

Remember the Jetsons? Specifically, the robotic maid? I'd like one of those please.
posted by dejah420 at 8:31 PM on March 14, 2004

America wants robots, we just want them to traverse vast distances quickly with no drivers for <Insert snarky comment about military usage here>, instead of playing trumpets. :)
posted by qDot at 8:42 PM on March 14, 2004

This is America we're talkin' about right? I think it's pretty clear what we'd want our robots to be like.

Why did I expect that link to go to realdoll.com? Maybe something about the "artificial lips", heh.
posted by Foosnark at 9:57 PM on March 14, 2004

I want robots that can make clothes and shoes. Then I'd sell Nike knock-offs for half the price and make a killing!
posted by mhh5 at 11:22 PM on March 14, 2004

Shouldn't the US be making humanoid robots too?

Nah! Illegal immigrants are much cheaper and easier to recycle.
posted by nofundy at 5:11 AM on March 15, 2004

A trumpet-playing robot is something. But a flute-playing automaton, created by Jacques Vaucanson (FR) in the 18th century, is something else. Then there's the excreting mechanical duck (more), which, for my money, shames an Aibo. Alas, the duck did not really digest its food: it contained a bladder which expelled a prepared mixture of faux-duck-doo.
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:46 AM on March 15, 2004

What do you really want your robot to do?

Swallow?
posted by alumshubby at 7:07 AM on March 15, 2004

My army of giant killer robots draws nearer realization every hour of every day.

120 cm

Make that midget killer robots.
posted by spazzm at 8:19 AM on March 15, 2004

I think I'll just stay here and make out with my Marilyn Monrobot.
posted by jon_kill at 8:59 AM on March 15, 2004

make me permanently unemployed?
posted by mrgrimm at 10:17 AM on March 15, 2004

All manual labor on Earth, giving even the lowest social classes a life of comfort and ease—that is, as long as they don’t become sentient.
posted by teradome at 10:35 AM on March 15, 2004