[Trombone-l] Asimo conducts Detroit

[Daniel Pliskin]

We seem to all be missing the point.  It isn't whether the Asimo was mimicking the assistant conductor or whether it could follow the musicians.  It isn't even whether Asimo could be programmed to add an interpretation to the music.  Whatever Asimo does and doesn't do has been programmed into it by a cast of thousands, who decided what was important and what wasn't.  And if that was done well enough, I suppose it could even be called art.  But if thousands of programmers, over all these years of programming robots, have been able to get this thing to "conduct" the orchestra, the art was in the design and programming of Asimo.  Asimo dutifully did what it was told.  

Now you have to ask yourself whether you would like to listen to robots doing what they're told or to someone who artfully interprets a piece of music.  Notice I said "listen to".  I have no doubt that this was a great side show.  But was it music and if it was, was it music because of Asimo, or because no matter what Asimo did, that orchestra was going to turn out music, because they're worthy musicians.  

I say that this was a side show.  I say that no matter how fast computers get, they're never going to have enough inputs, happening all in parallel or enough parallel processor power to interpret what those inputs mean.  I further say that the more we view education as the ability to pass tests, the more computers are going to be able to compete with humans.  What makes robots so useful is that they don't interpret what they're told to do.  They just do it.  Asimo stood up there and waved its arms in front of an orchestra.  Asimo would have don't the same thing if the orchestra hadn't been there.  Did anyone ask if Asimo could even hear the orchestra?  

Furthermore, are we now supposed to believe that caring, sensitive robots are building Hondas for us?  Or was this more like car racing sponsorship.  People are going to watch and you want your billboard to flash on the TV dozens of times during the race, so you sponsor some teams.  

I'm not impressed.

DanP


 

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