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NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, July 15, 2003: Not all robots look and act like the Terminator. The idea behind ArtBots, billed as a talent show for robots, is to show kids of all ages the softer side of bots. Fear of potentially rabid robots and other supposedly sentient technology is what motivated ArtBots organizers to host the show held in New York City recently. The show brought together 23 robots whose talents ranged from creating art to inspiring affection from passersby. “I thought that there was an awful lot of attention focused on violent, competitive aspects of robotics,” said Douglas Repetto, one of the curators of ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show. “It’s important to me to make the point that a given technology doesn’t have a given purpose or application,” Reppetto said. “It’s humans who decide what to use technology for and who get to decide how this technology is applied to their life.” Some of the talents displayed by the robots were pretty impressive. BabyBott looked like a giant baby bottle and cooed when it was cuddled. Its talent: making people take care of it. Another robot, Tribblation, has hundreds of pressure, temperature, sound and light sensors, enabling it to respond to stimuli like compliments and stroking. The crowd’s favorite was ShivaBot, a four-armed, 6-foot-tall robot modeled after the Hindu deity Shiva. ShivaBot, plays electronic drums, bells, chimes and cymbals.

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