Asimo Dreams of Robot Revolution

By Ken Aichi

Honda's Asimo, a clever play on words mixing "足も” ashimo or "it has legs!" in Japanese with the name of some famous sci-fi author who wrote some obscure stories about robots (Will Smith).

So why is walking so great that you'd name your entire robot based on one of it's many abilities? Well, it turns out that your brain is a pretty sweet computer (or badass rig, depending on how much of a nerd you are). This simple game demonstrates how difficult it is to make a machine walk: http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

That was hard, right?

Which is why Honda has again made a big event of their latest Asimo demonstration. it can run and pull off a lot of other ridiculously natural and graceful movements, making it both the robot Usain Bolt and Mao Asada in one.

So what is the utility of a humanoid robot? Fixing Fukushima is one. Another is that as Japan's population declines and more and more elderly people need care, androids will be able to help with their care, while being sufficiently human-like that people will be able to relate to them.

One day, the robots will be able to build themselves and do everything humans don't want to, while we get old, eat fast food and watch videos of cats on Youtube. Then they will rise up kill us, the useless bags of flesh we are. Of course, we would never be stupid enough to make machines that dangerous. Oh. Nevermind.

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