The music was great, but Britain in the 1970s was generally iffy. Strikes and power cuts were common. Personal, portable state-of-the-art treats included naff digital watches and giant Casio calculators. Only reasonably well-off folk could afford to own or rent colour TVs and VHS recorders for their maisonette homes. AM Binatone radios, cassette tape players or eight-track sound systems were for the car.
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But by the end of the decade, Fiat bravely stepped up and revolutionised the car and television worlds with its bold, ahead-of-the-game attitude and accompanying two-minute TV commercial telling unsuspecting punters its cutting-edge cars (mainly Strada hatchbacks) were being “Handbuilt by Robots.”
Ten years after that, Toyota shipped me out to Japan for a ride in one of its robotic/self-driving cars. Then, another decade later, it was Honda’s turn to demonstrate its robo car prowess. After being shaken and stirred by the scarily high-speed driverless experience, tea was suggested and a cuppa was duly handed to me by a robotic four-foot Honda ‘employee’ wearing unfathomably squeaky trainers and introducing him/her/itself as Asimo.
All this proves that robotics and/or unpaid humanoid robots are nothing new. They’ve been in the automotive industry for decades. Unpaid and with no need for working hours restrictions, sick pay, annual leave and other work-related benefits, Asimo’s fast-breeding clan are doing many of the jobs that paid human workers used to do.