Someone Thought It Would Be A Good Idea To Build Real Doctor Octopus Arms
Y’all, I feel like real scientists don’t watch nearly as many science fiction movies as the rest of us. I say that because they don’t seem to be properly warned about the potentially terrible outcomes when they try certain “inventions” out in real life.
This particular piece of tech comes from a Japanese robotics company called Jizai, and they’re calling it “Arms.”
Their promotional video shows the system dancing to some classical music, the arms mimicking the movements of human arms. They’re super cool and also innovative, as they don’t rely on a concrete use case, and therefore have more lifelike mobility.
They do plan to have them do more than dance and pick stuff up, too.
“The system was designed to enable social interaction between multiple wearers, such as an exchange of arms, and explore possible interactions between digital cyborgs in a cyborg society.”
The team says they were inspired by a 1963 story by Yasunari Kawabata, in which a girl lends her suitor an arm for the night.
“The novel is obviously a work of fiction, yet, half a century since its writing, emerging human-machine integration technologies have begun to allow us to physically experience Kawabata’s world.”
Honestly, the way they describe it makes me want to give it a try, cautionary tales be d**ned.
“From our role-playing sessions, we found that our bodies could precisely sense the attachment/detachment of arms, and we especially felt a strong impact when detaching or reducing the number of robotic arms worn.”
No word on whether or not it can take on Spider-Man, but I expect we’ll hear something eventually.
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