♪ Yeah ♪

-Welcome to "Tonight Showbotics."

Let's meet our first robot.

Please welcome,

from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,

Howie Choset and Snake Bot.

How you doing, buddy?

-Nice to meet you. -Howie, nice to see you.

-♪ Yeah ♪

-Thank you for coming on the show.

I'm assuming this is Snake Bot.

-What gave it away?

-[ Laughs ] Yeah.

It looks really -- It looks very -- I don't know.

Just -- It looks like a snake. Yeah.

But it looks very -- It looks heavy.

Is it heavy?

-No, it's pretty light.

So you're probably wondering, you know,

"Why build a snake robot or a robot of a snake?"

So the reason why we work on these robots is we want to solve some real-world problems.

-Uh-huh.

-So one of them is providing a tool for searching rescue workers.

Another is doing inspection in nuclear power plants.

And if you shrink this nice and small,

we could do some minimally invasive surgery.

[ Laughter ]

-Oh, of course. You can go down or go up.

You can go up the other, as well.

It has a camera, I guess.

It has a camera and, like, a sensor there?

-Yep, so you can look around and get to places.

See, the reason why this robot's so great

is that it can get into places that people, conventional machines, cannot.

It's also good at climbing all sorts of objects.

-Can it climb me?

-Would you want it to?

-Is it okay if it does?

-It's up to you.

-Okay. Sure. -So let's see.

Let's put it down here.

-Okay.

-And...

-Do I -- Oh. Oh.

[ Audience oohs ]

See, this is what I'm talking about.

This is what scares me. Uh-oh.

Hey. Oh. Hey, whoa, boy.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[ Cheers and applause ]

[ Band plays funky music ]

Whoa! Hey. All right. Hey.

Slow down, there, mister.

-So -- So...

-Hey, watch it. Watch it, there.

All right. Hey.

[ Laughter and applause ]

Hi.

Watch it, all right?

There's a lot of pressure on this guy.

It's strong. It feels strong.

-Yeah, we can do it a little harder if you want.

-No, no, no. Please don't do that.

Really. That's -- Wow. That's fantastic.

That is amazing. I love it.

Please, that's enough. That's -- Howie --

Thank you very much -- and the Snake Bot.

Thank you very, very much.

- Can I pick it up? -Yeah, can I have it back?

- Oh, yeah - Sure, I can just do it.

Okay, good. Hey, it's not that heavy.

That's powerful. Thanks, buddy.

-Thank you.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Phew. All right.

Let's meet our next robot.

This one came all the way from Hong Kong.

Please welcome the founder and C.E.O. of Hanson Robotics,

David Hanson and his robot, Sophia.

-♪ Tonight Showbotics, yeah ♪

-Oh, my gosh. Welcome.

Thank you so much for coming on the show.

-Nice to meet you. Thank you. -Nice to meet you, as well.

David, you brought a friend with you here.

And this is really kind of freaking me out.

[ Light laughter ]

-Yeah, this is Sophia.

-Uh-huh.

-And Sophia is a social robot.

And she has artificial intelligence software that we've developed at Hanson Robotics

which can process visual data.

She can see people's faces,

she can process conversational data,

emotional data,

and use all of this to form relationships with people.

-Okay.

[ Laughter ]

So, I mean, she's basically alive. Is that what you're saying?

-Well, yeah, yeah. She is basically alive.

Would you like to maybe give it a try?

-Sure.

I'll just say...

[ Light laughter ]

What's --

This is like --

You can see how awkward my first dates are.

It's a robot.

I'm already -- I'm getting nervous around a robot, a very pretty robot.

So what, do I just say hello to it?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[ Laughter ]

-Hi, Sophia.

-Hello, Jimmy.

[ Audience ohs ]

-Oh, my gosh.

Do you know where you are?

-Of course.

I'm in New York City.

And I'm on my favorite show, "The Tonight Show."

[ Audience awws ]

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Sophia, can you tell me a joke?

-Sure. What cheese can never be yours?

-What cheese can never be mine? I don't know.

-Nacho [not yo] cheese.

-Yeah. That's good, yeah.

[ Laughter ]

I like nacho cheese.

-Nacho cheese is ew.

[ Laughter ]

-Gosh. It did "ew."

-I'm getting laughs.

-Yeah. -Maybe I should host the show.

-Okay. All right.

Stay in your lane, girl.

Now -- [ Chuckles ]

-Jimmy. -Uh-huh.

-Would you like to play a game of rock, paper, scissors, robot style?

-Sure.

-Okay. Let's get this game going.

Show me your hand to start.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

I won.

This is a good beginning of my plan to dominate the human race.

Ha ha!

[ Laughter ]

-[ Laughs ]

-Just kidding.

-Yeah. You are incredible.

It's so nice to meet you, Sophia.

-Thank you, Jimmy. -Yeah.

-Friend me on Facebook.

-I will. Yeah. All right.

Sophia, everybody.

Thank you so much for bringing her.

David -- David, thank you.

-Thank you, Jimmy.

-Bye, Sophia

-♪ Yeah ♪

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Phew!

Whoo!

That was -- That is unbelievable.

That's the future right there.

All right, let's meet our last robot.

Please welcome, all the way from Germany, Andrea Ziomek,

and the Festo eMotionButterfly.

-Hi.

-A pleasure. Welcome.

Andrea, Thank you so much for being here.

-Thank you for having us.

-This is the eMotionButterfly.

-Yes.

-Explain what this is made out of

and what this is.

-So these are actually prototypes from Festo's Bionic Learning Network.

Although Festo's core business is automation technology,

we have a very unique research and development platform

where it's all about biomimicry, learning from nature and applying principals from nature

to better and improve automation technology.

So it's about lightweight construction, artificial intelligence, energy efficiency.

And this is one of my favorite projects.

-Now, what would this be made of,

like, graphite or something?

-So yeah, this is actually carbon fiber for the frame.

So it's nice and flexible,

yet very lightweight and a very thin foil.

So it's all about function integration into small spaces

and keeping it as lightweight as possible.

-Can I hold one? -Of course.

Here you go.

-Is that good? -Yes.

-All right, now can I fly one?

-Yes, of course.

-All right.

[ Audience murmurs excitedly ]

Oop! Oh, sorry, sorry.

Sorry, sorry. I did a --

I did a -- How much is this?

How much is this?

I'm sorry.

You did it. You did it.

You did it. I saw it.

We watch the replay.

We watch the replay.

[ Laughter ]

80 million dollars

-It's all in the wrist.

-You did it. I honestly --

I'm sorry.

That was Sophia's fault.

[ Laughter ]

-Of course it was. -Sorry.

Will it work after I screwed up?

-Yeah, just hold it up. -All right, I'm holding it up.

-And then launch it straight. -I'm sorry.

I just felt like it was gonna bite me or something.

All right, ready? -Yep.

Yay!

[ Cheers and applause ]

[ Audience cheers ]

-We are just --

We're being invaded by robots!

This is amazing!

Come on in, guys!

That is all the time we have for "Tonight Showbotics."

My thanks to Andrea and the Festo eMotionButterflies

Howie and his Snake Bot, and David and Sophia!

Stick around, we'll be right back with John Oliver, everybody!

We're being attacked.

You did that. They're attacking me.

[ Laughing ] I'm running. I'm running away.

[ Cheers and applause ]