Robot meets Swindon's local MEP in Brusells (Swindon Liberal Democrats)

Swindon Liberal Democrats <info@swindonlibdems.org>

Robot meets Swindon's local MEP in Brusells

February 2, 2005 1:28 PM

MEP Graham Watson meets ASIMO the robot

Graham Watson, the South West and Gibraltar Liberal Democrat MEP and Leader of the European Liberals in the European Parliament entered the world of science fiction when he met ASIMO. ASIMO is the most advanced humanoid robot in the world, developed by Honda engineers as part of ongoing research into cognitive mobility; part funded by the European Union and built in Japan.

Graham Watson said after meeting ASIMO;

"The global robotics industry is currently estimated to be worth $8bn and forecast to grow to $17bn by 2010. I am pleased that the European Union is taking an interest in this cutting edge technology by helping to fund projects such as ASIMO. The potential benefits to society of humanoid robots are enormous, for example they will give us the ability to use machines for some dangerous or monotonous tasks in the future. And by half way through this century the possibility of having a robot in every home may be realised."

ASIMO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility and is the latest generation of robot to imitate human predictive movement. ASIMO waved to onlookers and demonstrated considerable versatility of movement.

Graham carried on to say;

"I am particularly proud that the Technical Engineer for ASIMO came from Honda Engineering within my constituency in Swindon. Honda is to be congratulated in the groundbreaking work the company is carrying out. I was most pleased to meet ASIMO and shake its hand."

Local MEP, Graham Watson concluded:

"As well as shaking Asimo's hand, I walked up steps with her/him, pointed out different features of the building which s/he surveyed through rotating eyes and imagined life with a housetrained computerised aid. Within a decade we could be using robots like Asimo as domestic helps."