We have seen a robot play the flute, violin and other musical instruments. Now a Japanese play is using robots to act alongside human actors.
The play called Hataraku Watashi (I, Worker) premiered at Osaka University and is being considered as one of the few examples of robot-human interaction on stage.
The robots were programmed to speak their lines as they moved about on stage. The robot in the play is the ‘Wakamaru’ from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
The Wakamaru was designed primarily to provide care for the disabled and elderly. It runs Linux operating system, has limited speech and speech recognition abilities.
The play itself has a very interesting premise. It’s about a young couple with two housekeeping robots. One of the robots complains about its "demeaning" work and that leads to a discussion about the role of robots in human lives.
It’s an interesting question and one that is likely to come up more often as use of homes robots become more widespread.
[via BBC]
Photo: The Wakamaru Robot
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