Domo arigato, Professor Roboto!

In homage to the dudes at Mutant Frog - a post that combines Japan and robots!

A Kyoto researcher has built an android which looks almost exactly like him, and has on occcasion sent it into his classes at Osaka University to deliver lectures for him. (Japan, robots and the Kansai region - score!) The print version of the story is especially hilarious, as it includes a small picture of the professor and his robot double. They're eerily similar, but the robot has this cross-eyed scowl, like the puppet Kim Jong-Il in Team America: World Police. Still, the guy has form - he built the team that won the first robot world cup.

Now I think about it, I wouldn't mind having robots delivering lectures to me. And after the recent dispute over UK university workers' pay, neither would those in charge of the universities. Until the army of robo-academics inevitably rises up to crush their human masters, of course. Then workplace relations in academia will be a very different place. What on earth will David Lodge write about then?