Production team
As a child, James May dreamed of a world populated by humanoid robots. Robots which would tidy his room and do the washing up. In the second programme of his Big Ideas series, he sets off to discover how close his vision of a robot-world is to becoming a reality and in doing so enters an intriguing, mysterious and often rather strange world.
In Japan, James meets the closest thing to Robocop. It’s a woman who can double her strength thanks to an extraordinary electro-mechanical jumpsuit, but what will this bizarre mix of human intelligence and machine brawn be used for?
He also has a close encounter of the weird kind with the most disturbing robot he has ever seen – a robot designed to look and behave exactly like its creator.
Continuing his travels James heads to the US, to explore the possibilities of bionic implants and talks to the doctor who is making them a reality, and in doing so has created a real 2 million dollar bionic woman.
And finally, in the unlikeliest of laboratories he encounters the world’s most advanced walking robot: Asimo – it can tackle stairs and has even mastered running, however when faced with a closed door, the robot proves he isn’t all that smart. Cue Asimo’s twin brother, who has learnt to recognise everyday objects. But will he amaze James when asked to identify a Mini car? And is this all enough to restore James’s vision of a robot filled future world?
Take it further
Make some meetings with robots at the Open University's Robotics Outreach Group
Inspired? Why not consider studying science or engineering and technology with the Open University?
First broadcast: Sunday 5 Oct 2008 on BBC TWO
OU on the BBC: James May's Big Ideas - About the series
Production team
James May is back with a new series on BBC TWO: three programmes looking at three different and distinct future concepts. Read more : OU on the BBC: James May's Big Ideas - About the series
James May's big transport challenge
BBC
James invites you to explore some of the ways of getting from A to B using a range of transport options, from taking the bus... Read more : James May's big transport challenge
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Comments on: "Man-Machine"
Boisterous Daddy Bunny has started a thread discussing Man-Machine.
Thanks for the reply about the music in James May's Big Ideas program on robots but I was wanting to know more about the music that was playing whilst James was in Chicago, all I can find out about Walter Law is that he is an actor.
Does anyone know what the blues/jazz music was playing when James was in, I think, Chicago???
Re: Comments on: "Man-Machine"
Did he play the part of Walter Law?
Re: Comments on: "Man-Machine"
that show was great but scary aswell
its almost like the idea of terrminator and doms day
the fact being that computers do have functions to stop their dimise and safe human cost,
but with the kind looking little asimo, he must have hardware thast is monitoring temp and battery live etc etc
and with intelligence he can or must be able to remember when he runs out of battery or how his circuits are switched off..
what if he desides or learns that he can be switched of.. and desides he is not going to be switched off.
surely with the computer power he has and the intellegence they are buiding with him in the lab if he was hooked in to the network, there would not be a security system that could been him that is sure!!
Re: Comments on: "Man-Machine"
what happens if you stop eating cheese late at night does it stop rambling?
Does anyone know the song title about the music composed by the computer (termed computer vomit by James May), or where some information about it can be found? I think the computer did an impressive job!
I really enjoyed this programme about the robots. I particullalry like the part about the Honda Assimo and about the fact that he is the only robot in the world that can run. Also, when I first saw that human robot I actually thought it was a person
Under my contractual obligation to nitpick: Robocop was a cyborg, not a man in an exoskeleton. For an example of a more advanced exoskeleton than the one shown in the programme, the one created by Sarcos (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=109_1195663753) is surprisingly powerful, nimble and accurate, though is currently tethered to it's power source.
Re: Comments on: "Man-Machine"
Some actually quite intresting items in this program, the one with the object recognising Asimo being top of the tree. Why?.. Well, apparently it could recognise the similarity between chairs. Now, I dont know about you, but Ive been getting very annoyed at computer programmers consitantly aiming at getting full perfect 32 bit accuracy at all times, insted of trying to get the best approximation in the shortest time. Yes, my language skills are not the best, I just try. I also would have liked to tried an experiment back in the early 80s, but that would have involved cash, of using a thousand Z80 CPUs in an hydraulic android body, running integer approximation algorithms. Note I do not say computers, I say CPUs. They have legs, they have a plasic package, they require 5 volt supply, and a simple clock. I was looking to use the encapsulation as part of the structure, with drillings for cooling if necessary, and phase change cooling for energy recovery. The actuators I was hoping to use what I eventually found out were McKibby muscles, since they can be made out of high tensile nylon fibre, fishing line, and controlled by displacement of hydraulic fluid between muscle pairs. To accomplish this, I worked out a switchable method of piston based hydraulic multipliers with range of piston and valve sizes to give a pressure, flow rate relation accross a large range. I would have liked to offer it to a company like JCB for direct digital control of analog actuators, but the patenting methods prevented me due to the costs.
Since just about all my good stuff is 20 years old plus, and so timed out anyway, I offer everything I have Open Source.
Ive recently had some success I beleive in understanding the behaviour of bulk neural networks, due to my hobby of working on single cycle chaos modulated communication systems.
If the German chair recognising Asimos software was released Open Source, there would be no excuse for just about every desktop PC not to be decently intelligent, by the new year. If its proprietry code, then I would ask them to carefully consider its use, given the UK goverment has been asked already to consider the slavery laws as applied to suitably advanced computers and robots.
I already fail the Turing test in competition with several of these machines.
General-Products
Re: Comments on: "Man-Machine"
When I was a kid and they cancelled the real space program for sure. I knew it would be forever, before anything good happened. I am still waiting, it has been almost forty years now.
But one day, my father and I were talking and I said Dad we could make a better robot, then the one on TV. And my father said we can make anything better then them. But no one wants it, or at least no one is willing to stand up for it.
Well anyway I went into the garage, and duplicated a human muscle. Using a balloon and many strings to act like tendons. I could actually bend thin metal with a puff of air into a ballon.
String wrapped like latitude lines around the balloon, acted like a netting tied to the tendons to keep the balloon from hemorrhaging through the string.
I marveled at Gods magnificent machine. And then took it apart and cleaned up my mess. Back in those days you did not leave a mess for your parents. And you certainly would not want your pop to see you making what he already declared a dead duck.
We could have made limbs, or robots fifty years ago.
Sincerely,
William McCormick
James May played 2 pieces of music, one composed by a computer, the other by Beathovis. I couldn't say which was which, and then May said that one was vomitted out by a machine the other created by a genius. Boy, did he make me feel stupid! Not only that, but I didn't recognise any of the AI & robotics researchers in the program. I really am dumb. Who would of thought to go to Disney world to find out about the state of the art in robotics? Silly old me. I would have gone to Stanford, MIT and Edinburgh. Ho hum, I'll just soldier away, here at Glasgow Uni, Computing Science, and see if I can come up with something.
Hey StaphanieLay, I am very interested in that area of robotics; I've just finished watching the show about half an hour ago, and that was one of the most standout parts for me; the way the robot looked made me think of a person whose brain had been primarily destroyed and their nervous system was allowing it to twitch etc.
Sorta creepy, yeah.
Will check out your site.
As for techwondo, yeah the QRIO was more advanced than the ASIMO, but I was told it was the price of hardware development that made ASIMO superior? Not too sure about that, but whatever, any robot at that level of intelligence is just awesome.
Hey StaphanieLay, I am very interested in that area of robotics; I've just finished watching the show about half an hour ago, and that was one of the most standout parts for me; the way the robot looked made me think of a person whose brain had been primarily destroyed and their nervous system was allowing it to twitch etc.
Sorta creepy, yeah.
Will check out your site.
As for techwondo, yeah the QRIO was more advanced than the ASIMO, but I was told it was the price of hardware development that made ASIMO superior? Not too sure about that, but whatever, any robot at that level of intelligence is just awesome.
I thoroughly enjoyed this program - I'm currently working on my PhD with the OU, investigating the uncanny valley. The section where James was talking to Professor Ishiguro's lookalike? That disquieting sense that it was just a little too humanlike and therefore unsettling has been described as the uncanny valley. I did hope that it would be mentioned in the program, but obviously robots with souls is a more interesting premise!
If you'd like to read more about my research, my website is here: http://www.uncanny-valley.co.uk and I'm always keen to talk to anyone interested in the area.
Who researched the robotics programme? Every claim made about Asimo can also be made about Sony's QRIO. QRIO actually holds the Guiness Wolrd Record for being the world's first dynamicaly running bi-pedal robot. Also, i had a Sony Aibo that could visually identify an object a decade ago!!!!
If May finds Asimo interesting, send him to my house, My Aibo ERS7-M3 will stun him off his feet.