ROBOTS TO STIR SOUP

In Britain a $2 million dollar grant has been awarded to a company to develop a robot that can stir soup. Why does this seem stupid to me? It is funded by the European Commission and they feel it is a way to introduce robots into the service industry. I guess Americans aren’t the only ones that have to deal with government waste. Besides, aren’t these jobs supposed to be done by illegal immigrants? Bristol Robotics Lab in England is the lucky winner of the cash. "It will specifically look at the problems of a human and a robot working together in the same space, for example in a kitchen where the service robot is performing a task such as stirring soup, while you add cream." Let’s see, the economy is going into the toilet, unemployment is everywhere and you’re going to develop a robot that helps take away the few jobs that are out there. Am I missing something here? Why can’t we develop a robot that maybe runs into burning buildings or searches for earthquake victims? “Excuse me, call in Robby the Robot, soup’s on.” Lab director Professor Chris Melhuish explained: "When we interact with other humans we are interpreting facial expression, body position, gestures, tone of voice as well as sharing a goal and understanding and following verbal instructions. For example in the soup situation, not only does the robot need to know what the goal is but he also needs to know how hard to stir the soup, what it means when you hold up your hand to say enough, to interpret the look of pain on your face if you accidentally get splashed with hot soup, and to stop stirring when told. This project aims to develop the rules we need to introduce this level of sophistication into service robots who are working closely with people." Ok, I’m beginning to detect some issues here. Somebody doesn’t like working with people. Man, you need to get out more. Have you thought of dating. Is the soup bad in England? I mean, c’mon, you eat pickled eels and serve coffee (civit coffee) made from cat poop. How good can your cuisine be? The only thing palatable in England is the beer and that’s got alcohol to sterilize it. Just what I need is a robot bringing me my meal that whines like C3PO. “Oh my, I can speak 1000 languages and I’m stirring soup. R2, don’t touch that. R2 don’t go in there. Oh my no you’ve done it, the soup’s scorched.” What about the customers? “Oh waiter, there’s a microprocessor in my soup.” Robotic research fine. A robot to stir my soup? Get a real project.
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=147434&in_page_id=2