The Japanese Prime Minister is already planning for the future of sports in Japan in science-fiction fashion.
"In 2020 I would like to gather all of the world’s robots and aim to hold an Olympics where they compete in technical skills,” he told the Japanese press, according to Betabeat. Of course, 2020 is also the year Tokyo will be holding the 32nd Summer Olympic Games, so the first-ever Robot Olympics may have some competition.
The Prime Minister's comments came at a robotics factory with statements about invigorating the Japanese robotics industry, Betabeat says, so plans of combining robotics and athletics might have just been tools of rhetoric. The robotics field booms in Japan, with a recent slew of ground-breaking projects including robot suits and machines that can understand emotion and speech, the Telegraph reports.
But if it were to happen, there are certainly some bots looking to take home the gold. One little guy pretty much has gymnastics figured out, and another almost bested a world-class table tennis player at his own game. Considering the world just watched a robotic suit help a paralyzed man kick off the World Cup, it definitely seems like the first Robot Olympics would have an audience.
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