Robots making noises

I have found these awesome robots through Paul Lamere’s excellent post.

It’s interesting to see robots trying to mimic most basic human capabilities and how these capabilities can be used for interaction between robots and people in the future. I can’t help but wonder though, if this is strictly necessary. I can imagine robots equipped with text-to-speech capabilities speaking to people just as well.

On a different note, these robots conjure up scenes straight from Star Wars in my mind: imagine entering a sleazy bar on the corner to find “live music” made by a saxophone playing robot and a robot singing the blues. Jukebox v2.0?

What would happen if/when instrument playing robots could match humans? Could robots ever replace the fine musicians in Berliner Philarmoniker? What about robotic conductors? Should Sir Simon Rattle, who just got his contract extended till 2018, start worrying about his next extension?