The clips contain some really amazing things that I had never seen in a mass-market-oriented R&D presentation: an intriguing glimpse at ASIMO's representation of the world, ASIMO following an order to go to where somebody is pointing. But it strikes me that precisely these neat clips underscore how far ASIMO is from processing reality LIKE us, even if the results can simulate some of our abilities. In the pointing example for instance, it seems the experimenter has to stay very still for several seconds, pointing and looking at a precise spot on the floor. Then ASIMO says or asks something in Japanese and heads very confidently for the spot. When he (I can't get around using a personal pronoun!) reaches it, he pivots to face the experimenter and then takes a four-inch corrective step back in the direction he came from. It is such a jarringly strange and un-human action. Maybe they teach you that in the Marine Corps, but we certainly did not evolve this implementation of that capability.
But it strikes me that precisely these neat clips underscore how far ASIMO is from processing reality LIKE us, even if the results can simulate some of our abilities.
In the pointing example for instance, it seems the experimenter has to stay very still for several seconds, pointing and looking at a precise spot on the floor. Then ASIMO says or asks something in Japanese and heads very confidently for the spot. When he (I can't get around using a personal pronoun!) reaches it, he pivots to face the experimenter and then takes a four-inch corrective step back in the direction he came from. It is such a jarringly strange and un-human action. Maybe they teach you that in the Marine Corps, but we certainly did not evolve this implementation of that capability.