"Ta Ta Tue"

Have you ever wondered what Robotic Science/Human Psychology Graduate students from Bangladesh sing about? Here are some pictures of my friend Al-Amin and I singing a traditional Bangoli children's song together. He taught me the lyrics and melody. A rough translation of the chorus: "Every day my heart is dancing. Who is dancing? -- Ta ta tue tue..."

"Ta Ta Tue" is the sound of the Tabla, an Eastern drum that is pretty Rock and Roll. Think of it as in the Little Drummer Boy's "Pa rum pa pum pum".

Al-Amin is currently doing research on human-robot symbiosis. So, if you want to be on the winning side of the Robot revolution, visit his Web Site and learn to your human heart's content.

He and I had several discussions about his work in Robotics. I delicately raised the question of Science Fiction's 's prophecies regarding the development of Artificial intelligence. "Will we be enslaved by Robots as they become smarter than us?"

No.

But why not? Al-Amin told me that Robots are machines governed by a program. For my technologically limited understanding, this was as far as I could go. But the fact that a robot acts only as commanded by its programmer made sense.

And that's why I decided that although Al-Amin serves fruit garnished with salt, he was a good friend. A good friend with a sweet voice and a Robotic dog that knows how I'm feeling.