Jun 22 2007HRP-3 Promet Mk-II blue-collar robot
The HRP-3 Promet Mk-II is a robot designed to take over blue-collar jobs. It stands 5' 3", weighs 150 pounds, and is part of a 5-year joint effort by Kawada Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) to develop a humanoid robot with sufficient skills to enter the workforce. Pink Tentacle writes:
[It's] tough enough to trudge through heavy rains, carry out disaster relief operations and work in environments hazardous to humans, demonstrated its skills at a June 21 press conference at Kawada Industries headquarters in Tochigi prefecture. In addition to flaunting its ability to walk on slippery surfaces, the robot showed off its electric screwdriver wielding talents by taking the opportunity to tighten up some loose screws.
I don't see this thing actually replacing any employees considering it costs $3.3 million. Maybe I'm just out of touch with society, but that seems slightly higher than the average blue-collar worker's salary. Slightly.
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Reader Comments
1. higk - June 22, 2007 1:14 PM
"...disaster relief operations and work in environments hazardous..." just like every blue-collar job.
2. duck tales - June 22, 2007 1:16 PM
.. you don't get paid in millions? pfft.
3. Tall Face - June 22, 2007 1:17 PM
3.3 million...and it only takes ten minutes for it to pick up a tool? you've got to be a head of lettuce to pass up a deal like THAT!
4. Joe Mamma - June 22, 2007 1:24 PM
I, for one, would like to welcome our new robot overlords!
Skynet has become self aware!
5. RandomNigel - June 22, 2007 1:24 PM
Ingenious. Now I can buy a robot to do disaster work for me. Should it start cleaning my room or the kitchen first?
6. Manuel Gonzales - June 22, 2007 1:41 PM
Make it 100 times faster at 1/100th the cost and you got a deal!
7. Amy - June 22, 2007 1:47 PM
Not until they at least get dynamic walking down. Can you imagine this thing trying to climb steps? It'd make a total Asimo of itself =)
8. KRiPPeR - June 22, 2007 2:14 PM
It walks like my grandmother.
But I'm pretty sure that Robocop would have a hard-on with the first picture.
PS: worst song ever ._.
9. Propeller Tool - June 22, 2007 2:59 PM
How much extra would it cost to make it stop staring at me?
Really, man, that's the creepiest cybernetic blue-collar worker replacement I've ever seen.
10. SuperStoned420 - June 22, 2007 3:44 PM
why do we want to replace our work positions for robots?
scientists, the smartest people alive are spending all their brain power creating things that essentially phase out human beings.
that gives me more time to chat to hot babes all day.
11. Lenina - June 22, 2007 4:16 PM
The Japanese just won't let robots go, huh. They should work on my important things. Like Cheez Whiz. That's the wave of the future, right there.
12. klikklak - June 22, 2007 5:50 PM
that thing fucking sucks. i'd fire that stupid thing.
it's slow, drops the drill, and then dances like an asshole.... oh, wait... that's actually a lot like a union worker.
13. Ed Said - June 22, 2007 8:37 PM
Was it flippin all the reporters off at the end there? Maybe that just means it'll bond with co-workers and can stand up for itself.
14. egohavoc - June 22, 2007 8:58 PM
I'm with #6
15. Revamp - June 22, 2007 10:04 PM
We laughed then, but little did we know the horrors which awaited us... The future was to be bleak, robotic and involve much granny-waddling.
16. scar104 - June 22, 2007 10:56 PM
I don't want to sound like a uppity, pretentious a-hole, but you all understand that this is just a prototype, right? Everything starts out as a clumsy, obscenely expensive prototype, and then gets much better. Like computers, the first were useless, huge, and so faulty, no one wanted to continue. People thought that if they weren't useful, inexpensive, and perfect now, they wouldn't ever be. But now, they are three thousand times smaller and more powerful than people ever dreamed. Couldn't we give this robot the same consideration?
17. Brennan - June 23, 2007 1:37 AM
#16: No.
18. BobTheMul - June 23, 2007 10:21 AM
Why does you Tube always edit out the scenes of a video that I appear in? I run in, and drop kick the HRP-3 Promet Mk-II square in the chest plate then shout, "Yeah!? You piece of crap that was a present from my son, and the Mk-III will get the same if it drops my goddamn power screw drill!"
I miss Robot Wars sooooo much....
19. buzz_clik - June 24, 2007 8:14 PM
#8 - You're saying a lounge version of the Kraftwerk classic 'The Robots' is the WORST song ever? Are you mad? Wash your mouth out with acid, pronto! To quote another expensive robot, it's FREAKIN' GENIUS.
20. Tap - June 25, 2007 9:13 AM
Oh my God, he's got a gun! Run for your lives!
21. Chuck - June 25, 2007 2:28 PM
anybody else notice that it looks like they tried to make the head look like a Gundam? maybe its just me...
22. upwithskynet - November 29, 2007 8:46 AM
it's japanese...all robot heads need to look gundam
but hell...3.3 million to work, and it takes 10 minutes to pick up a tool....thats better than the union guys I work with.and I can't mount a plasma gun on them.