Runners World Interviews Robot Marathon Champ!

You may or may not have followed the robot marathon that went on in Japan, but over at Runners World, they took it very seriously. After all, if we’re going to be racing robots soon, it’s important to stay on top of the competition!

I followed it too, and have to say I was pretty thrilled to see that robots are slower than me. I’m not that slow, but I’m solidly middle of the pack, and have had a few smaller races where my goal was “don’t be last”. Now I know I just need to convince a robot to run along with me, and I’ll always have a cushion…

In any case, RW has an exclusive with the new, elite robot racer. In the interests of protecting humanity from our future running robot overlords, I strongly recommend you read the whole thing. I won’t share my absolute favorite bit (you’ll have to head to Runner’s World for that) but here’s a tidbit:

RW Daily: Congratulations. How does it feel to be the winner of the first ever marathon for bipedal robots?
Robovie-PC: I am still walking backward down stairs. But it’s an honor, I guess.

How did you celebrate your victory?
I am not familiar with this term, “celebrate.”

I mean, did you do anything special or unusual as a way of rewarding yourself?
Oh. My developers uploaded jpegs of cheeseburgers and beer to my memory. Then I powered down for 12 hours. So there was that.

I for one welcome our new elite runner robot overlords.