Humanoid-faced robot takes the baton, conducts orchestra for 950 people in Seoul
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Some of the greatest maestros in the world probably rolled in their graves, when for the first time a robot took the conductor’s podium in South Korea in front of a crowd of 950 people.
The robot, EveR 6, can be seen swinging its arms around with a baton on a podium. It also makes tiny gestures with its head as it conducts rows of a band of musicians, just like a real music conductor would.
Robot to be integrated with AI in future
The robot, developed by the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH), debuted at the National Theater of Korea in Seoul. The robot is five feet (1.8 meters) tall and led an ensemble of 60 musicians who played traditional Korean instruments.
Ever 6 is not a generative artificial intelligence(AI) like ChatGPT, said Lee Dong-wook from KITECH, who developed the robot, as reported by the Korea Herald.
“EveR 6 is a robot that executes programmed movements,” said Lee. “The robot is programmed using the ‘motion capture’ technology of digitally recording a person’s baton trajectory through sensor attachments.”
Lee mentioned that his team plans to integrate the EveR 6 with artificial intelligence and take it to a stage "where a conductor can use it as an auxiliary tool requesting a specific beat.”
Robot's performance at 'elementary level'
The robot-guided three of the five pieces performed on the evening of June 30. One of the performances was jointly conducted with Korean conductor Choi Soo-yeoul.
"Movements by a conductor are very detailed. The robot was able to present such detailed moves much better than I had imagined." However, Choi pointed out that EveR 6's "critical weakness” is that it cannot listen.
Sixty-two-year-old audience member Song In-ho told Reuters that the robot’s performance appeared to be at an elementary level.
"I guess it would be able to do the conducting all by itself when it's equipped with artificial intelligence to understand and analyze the music," Song added.
Kim Ji-Min, a music student who had come to see the robot’s performance, told AFP, “I came here worried whether this robot could pull this off without a glitch. But I found it to be in great harmony with the musicians. It seemed like a worthwhile challenge and it felt like a whole new world for me.”
Not the first robot to conduct
While a lot of online reports are jumping to the hyperbole argument ‘Will robots replace humans?’ it should be noted that this isn’t the first time that a humanoid robot has taken center stage. Similar performances have taken place world over.
As per a Yahoo report, a robot — Asimo — developed by Honda conducted an orchestra in 2008, a dual-arm robot YuMi conducted a classical orchestra in 2017 in Switzerland, a second-generation AI robot Alter 2 conducted in 2018 in Japan and a third-generation robot Alter 3 in 2020.
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