Robot Flutist Is Better Than You, Knows It
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 3 of November , 2008 at 3:03 am
You know those flute lessons your parents made you take when you were a kid? Yeah, it’s all futile now, because they have a flute playing robot who can play everything you can play, only better and more robot-like. And just to give you an extra kick in the metaphorical (or actual, as the case may be) nuts, this robot not only plays the flute, it teaches other poor saps how to play the flute, too.
Waseda University’s flutist robot has everything a human flutist could possibly ask for, including two lungs, two arms with hands and fingers, a tongue, vocal cords, lips, and a silly hat. The really cool part is that it’s all functional: the robot plays the flute just like you do (assuming you play the flute), with all the same body parts (fake body parts) working the same way. His eyes contain cameras that can track the finger movements of other musicians, enabling him to adjust his tempo to match. And since he can see what you’re playing, he can critique your performance: “the robot is able to evaluate the performance of flutist beginners, as well as provide feedback to the student, in order to improve the performance.” I’m sure that goes over well.
The inventors suggest that bands or orchestras made up of deft robotic players could provide entertainment. They don’t specify what sort of entertainment, but I think it should involve music and other stuff, like violence. Or maybe I’m just not enough of a classical music fan.
More of me ranting discussing some things, after the jump.
My only quibble with this robot is that he sounds very… Robotic. Just like the robot violinist and saxophonist we’ve already been introduced to. Yes, I know he’s a robot, and he’s fully entitled to sound robotic. But what I mean is, at this stage in our technological development we have to be careful when creating robots that are designed to emulate humans so directly. The uncanny valley is about more than just looks: when robots start to do human things, it’s all to easy to compare them directly to humans, which generally makes them seem inadequate. And, on occasion, creepy.
Some of the best robots, I think, are robots who don’t try to be like humans. And if they don’t try to be like humans, we don’t compare them to humans, and we tend to judge them more on their own merits. Keepon is my favorite example of this (of course), but a more appropriate example in this context is probably the little yellow drum machine. Instead of trying to emulate a human drummer, the little yellow drum machine uses a third drum stick for accompaniment, and a mic and speaker to loop with itself on the fly. Nothing like a human, and so we don’t think, “eh, not as good as Ringo,” but instead, “wow, that’s an awesome little drumming robot.” It’s not about being better or worse, it’s about being something different, something unique.
I guess perhaps my point is that there are two distinct ways of thinking about robots: either in human terms, or robot terms, and when a robot looks human (ish), it’s harder to separate the two. And thinking about robots in terms of humans, or even creating robots in terms of humans, can be quite restrictive… Robots are capable of so much more.
[ Waseda Flutist ] VIA [ MIT ]
Comments (2)
Category: Androids, Biorobotics, Educational, Musical
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Comment by Ironman
Made Monday, 3 of November , 2008 at 9:25 am
your rant i believe is the beginning of a new era.
the era of literature where man compares himself to machine and learns because of it.
Comment by PoisonedV
Made Tuesday, 4 of November , 2008 at 10:39 pm
Finally, now Jethro Tull has TWO robotic band members!