ASIMO's final demonstration and retirement

What happened

ASIMO, Honda's humanoid robot, formally retired on 31 March 2022, according to a Kyodo report.^[1] Its last regular demonstration was held at the showroom of Honda's headquarters in Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo.^[2] Demonstrations at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) in Tokyo also ended on that day.^[1]

The two venues were where the machine had been shown to the public on a regular schedule. A regular demonstration is a fixed, repeated public show rather than a one-off event: the robot performs a set programme in front of visitors, and the audience can see for itself what the machine can and cannot do. Ending those shows, rather than only ending a research project, is what made the retirement visible to the public.

The final performance

About 100 people attended the final performance.^[2] ASIMO danced to the audience's clapping, used sign language while singing, and kicked a ball to the audience.^[2] These are all actions that require the machine to keep its balance while moving its arms and legs at the same time, which is the part of humanoid robotics that is hardest to get right.

At the end of the performance, ASIMO told the audience that Honda's robotics research would continue.^[2] The sentence drew a line between one machine and the work behind it: the programme was ending, but the company was not leaving robotics.

Why Honda stopped

Honda said ASIMO had largely fulfilled its mission, and that it had stopped ASIMO development several years earlier.^[2] In other words, the retirement date marked the end of the public appearances, not the moment the engineers put down their tools.

Honda also said it would concentrate on remotely controlled avatar robots, aiming at practical use in the 2030s.^[2] An avatar robot is a machine that does not decide things for itself. A person operates it from a distance, and the machine reproduces the operator's movements and carries the operator's voice to the place where the machine stands. The engineering problem shifts accordingly: instead of teaching a machine to walk around and react on its own, the work goes into making the machine a faithful, reliable stand-in for a human being who is somewhere else. The stated target of practical use in the 2030s shows how long Honda expects that shift to take.

What continues

Sales of ASIMO-related merchandise and appearances at events would continue after the retirement.^[2] The machine therefore does not disappear from view entirely; it moves from the showroom schedule to occasional appearances and to the merchandise shelf.

Why it matters

For a general audience, regular demonstrations were the main way to meet a humanoid robot in person, and the final show is a small record of what such a demonstration looked like: a crowd of about 100, clapping, a robot dancing, signing while singing, and kicking a ball back to the people watching.^[2] For the field, the retirement marks a company moving its effort from a humanoid that performs in front of an audience to a remotely controlled machine meant to be used, with the 2030s named as the horizon for that use.^[2] Both facts sit in the same announcement: the demonstration ends, and the research goal is restated in a different form.