A shiny, white and 1.3 meter tall, ASIMO robot , designed by Honda Motor Company, met its latest challenge on Tuesday night, by conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a performance of , The Impossible Dream’ from ‘Man of La Mancha.’
The ASIMO Robot began as follows: “Hello, everyone.” in a child-like voice and then waved to the orchestra. As it conducted it perfectly mimicked the actions of a conductor, nodding its head at various sections and gesturing with one or both hands. Then the ASIMO Robot took a final bow to enthusiastic shouts from the audience.
The ASIMO Robot also said,’ It is absolutely thrilling to perform with the symphony Orchestra. This is a magnificent concert hall.’
Later, cellist Yo-Yo Ma joined ASIMO onstage to receive an award for his efforts in music education. Ma bent to ASIMO’s height and shook its hand. Ma performed later on the programme but did not take questions from the media about ASIMO.
A Honda spokeswoman said it was the first time an ASIMO has conducted an Orchestra and it may be the first time any robot has conducted a live performance.ASIMO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility.
But ASIMO has its limits.Its engineers actually programmed the robot to mimic Charles Burke, the Detroit’s Symphony’s Education Director, as he conducted the piece in front of a pianist about six months ago.But it cannot respond to the musicians.
During the first rehersal the orchestra lost its place when ASIMO began to slow the tempo, something a human conductor would have sensed and corrected , said bassist Larry Hutchinson
‘But it is not a communicative device and it is simply programmed to do a sense of gestures,’ said Leonard Slatkin, the Orchestra’s musical director.’If the Orchestra decides to go faster, there is nothing the robot can do about it.Hopefully, I keep that under control.’
But several musicians also said that ASIMO was more realistic than they expected. Though the movements are little stiff, but very human-like and and more fluid than I thought.
Honda has been developing walking robots like ASIMO since 1986.No doubt robots may even become companions of human beings very soon.