# Ever seen a robot run? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 17, 2004, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-robot-run/280409 "2004-12-17T20:40:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-robot-run/280409/41 "2004-12-21T00:44:04Z")
What is _anything_ for? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-robot-run/280409/42 "2004-12-21T01:46:55Z")
> [@](#): > > But what do they do? What are they for? They are for people to say, “Wow, that Sony is a COOL company! Look what they can do! I must buy their products!” Plus, the Japanese have a ‘thing’ for robots. The Sony AIBO is barely known in North America, but they sell like hotcakes in Japan. A lot of Japanese companies are convinced that there is a big future in robots, so they are spending money now on the R&D, on the hope that when the day comes when everyone is clamoring for robots, they’ll have a competitive advantage over everyone else. They might even be right. In the meantime, Qrio is simply very neat. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-robot-run/280409/43 "2004-12-21T01:56:50Z")
The clip with it interacting with kids nearly made me cry the first time around (well, sort of), which I’m sure is precisely what Sony wanted. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-robot-run/280409/44 "2004-12-21T02:17:46Z")
I would suspect that the robots we buy in the future would not be bipeds. It just doesn’t seem to be very practical when we could make use of wheels. Asimo(v?) and the Sony guy are built to look cool and to inspire us but they are not practical, and practical is what we’ll be buying. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-robot-run/280409/45 "2004-12-21T06:44:34Z")
I don’t know about that. I mean, I’m sure there will be all kinds of wheeled and tracked robots, but the concept behind these is that they are intended to be companion/entertainment robots, where part of the appeal is the very fact that they look like people. Plus, there is some advantage to bipedal general purpose robots in the home. It can climb stairs, use chairs and stools to reach things, open cupboards up high, and in general manipulate the environment the same way we do. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-robot-run/280409/46 "2004-12-21T09:01:37Z")
> [@1920s Style "Death Ray"](#): > > I would suspect that the robots we buy in the future would not be bipeds. It just doesn’t seem to be very practical when we could make use of wheels. Asimo(v?) and the Sony guy are built to look cool and to inspire us but they are not practical, and practical is what we’ll be buying. I disagree, for pretty much the same reasons **Sam Stone** mentions; in order to be practical _in an everyday enviroment that we have largely tailored to fit our own form_, the bipedal form is quite suitable for a multipurpose robot. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-robot-run/280409/47 "2004-12-21T18:05:29Z")
Isn’t _Robot, Run_ a John Updike novel as retold by Isaac Asimov? The first volume of the Robot trilogy? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-robot-run/280409.md?page=2)