Humanoid helper-robots go on sale in Japan
Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has teamed up with Kawada Industries to bring a full-sized, humanoid robotic assistance to the market.
The HRP-4 stands at just over 1.5m tall, and comes equipped with fully articulated joints and the freedom of movement as any human. But this isn’t a showcase device, like Honda’s famous Asimo robot. The purpose behind the HRP-4 is a practical one, and not something with a military focus, for once.
The robot was designed to primarily to forward the advancement of household robotics, and while this probably isn’t the model that will begin taking jobs from humans, it’s certainly the likely to be the grandparent of the robot that does. The growing labor shortage in its native Japan, as well as the increasing age of its populace (the Japanese being some of the longest lived people on the planet) is expected to be the catalyst that drives the need for a functioning, robotic workforce.
The HRP-4 is touted as something of a robotic platform, with a deliberately slim build and wide range of movements intended to provide third parties with a customisable framework for their robotic requirements. Weighing in at around $300,000 each, it’s not quite what we’d call affordable just yet, but watching the video of the robot showing itself off to the Japanese press (below) it takes very little imagination to picture the HRP-4 performing rudimentary chores around the house.
[Via AIST]
If they’re $300,000 each, I’d buy one and train it to make another one.
Then those 2 would make 4, those 4 would make 8.
And eventually I’d be a billionaire, if not from selling robots at $500,000 a piece (people would pay extra for the added novelty of having a robot built by a robot) but from having an army of robots that will commit internet crimes inside their own heads, or just from robbing weak human banks.
I bet that’s what humanity thought right up until the Matrix began. Then they were just kicking themselves afterwards, once they were all enslaved and stuff. But as a short term plan, it’s an excellent idea.