look, robots dancing! (yawn)

In my travels around the net, I found a video of a foursome of Sony Robots dancing to amuse the gathered crowd of pressmongers (somewhere in Japan?).

At first blush, it's an impressive sight to see how anthropomorphic the machines are (not too much of an uncanny valley separating us).

However, I found that as the robots started going into more tightly choreographed moves, I was completely un-impressed with the show.

Why? Well, the most impressive part of synchronized dancing (singing, swimming, whatever) is the fact that there are many completely independent actors that have disciplined themselves into acting as one.

When it comes to the robots, it's simply executing a script that someone else has written. No drama. No suspense. No "what if they mess up?" It's really rather dull.

Take a look and see if you agree: