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A robot designed for war recently performed a 30-minute DJ set at a nightclub in San Francisco. No, seriously, this is a thing that happened. A reporter was there and saw it.
Timothy Karoff, Culture Reporter for SFGate.com, recently went to Temple Nightclub to see Phantom, the first humanoid robot developed by San Francisco-based startup Foundation Robotics Labs, rock the house. Foundation, by the way, is the only American robotics company building humanoids for the military. And laying down some dope tracks, apparently.
Foundation co-founder Mike LeBlanc told Karoff that his group is the opposite of almost every other robotics company that has promised that their creations will not be used for war. “We believe that humanoids are going to be critical to the future of warfare. Hence, designing robots that are bigger, faster, stronger,” he said.
So… then why is Phantom doing DJ sets on the main stage at a club?
“We are not trying to apologize for the strength of robots,” LeBlanc said. “So for us, this is the perfect unveiling because this is what our robot is. This is a fun moment.”
Standing over the room, Phantom is completely expressionless. He has to be, since his face is a round-edged, featureless black box. He’s shaped like a human: broad shoulders, a torso, a narrow midriff and arms with elbow joints. At times, Phantom raises his hand straight up and down, silvery digits upright, thumb askew.
Phantom’s motions are uncannily smooth. A human DJ would’ve bounced up and down, jabbing at buttons on the DJ board. Phantom’s head stays perfectly level, and instead of jerking his hands, he brings them down in perfectly timed arcs. Phantom doesn’t pick tracks out in real time, Pathak explains to me. Humans selected the music in advance, and Foundation Robotics Lab spent a few weeks training the robot’s every motion.
“I think you’re going to be seeing a lot more of Phantom with music,” LeBlanc told Karoff. “People just love this thing.”
So now humanoid robots are dancing, exercising, throwing punches, performing surgery, and DJing. Is this what they meant when they said there would be thousands of humanoid robots invading our workplaces and homes in 2025?