As major technology companies such as Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) grow drone and robotic divisions that look ever more threatening at replacing human jobs and military functions, complementing a questionable NSA cooperation program that remains in the shadows and could be damaging if it fell into the wrong hands, President Obama viewed a Japanese robot demonstration Wednesday with awe with a slight dash of terror.
“Robots scary”
“The robots were a little scary,” Obama quipped after viewing robots playing soccer, saying they were “amazing” but also disconcerting. “They were too lifelike.”
The president was interacting with a humanoid robot named Asimo, who conversed with Obama in English before jumping up and down and kicked a soccer ball to him, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Touring the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Japan, Obama said his jarring experience did “show the incredible breakthroughs in technology and science that are happening every single day.”
Obama cites “technological cooperation”
Then Obama made some rather odd remarks. As technological competition is a matter of national security, and Japan, the US and other Asian nations have accused each other of corporate spying in the past, Obama noted “technological cooperation,” saying “Japan and the United States have historically led the way in innovations that have changed our lives and improved our lives.”
This may be true, but it wasn’t always done with technological “cooperation.”
(Photos WSJ.com)
