If you've ever wanted to adorn your house with sculptures that look like they were carved by Michelangelo himself, now might be your time.
Italy has invented a robot that carves sculptures out of marble just like Michelangelo. A startup called Robotor came up with the mechanical Michelangelo. Robotor's founder Giacomo Massari believes these machine-sculpted statues are as good as those made by humans, CBS News reported.
"I think, let's say we are in 99 per cent," Massari told CBS. "But it's still the human touch [that] makes the difference. That one percent is so important," he added.
Massari also said that "robot technology does not steal the job of the humans, but just improves it."
A robot that sculpts like a pro
The robot is called "1L" and stands at the height of 13 feet. It's a zinc alloy robot that can carefully chip away at marble to deliver astounding results.
"We are entering a new era of sculpture, which no longer consists of broken stones, chisels and dust, but of scanning, point clouds and design," Robotor's website says. "The quarried material can now be transformed, even in extreme conditions, into complex works in a way that was once considered unimaginable."
While the technology itself seems legendary, artists who have spent their entire lives honing the skill of sculpting will not be too pleased. An ancient art, sculpting requires meticulous practice with one's hands. Many artists believe that if sculpting is completely done by machines, the art of doing it by hand could be lost forever.
It's true that might or might not happen, but it's still amazing to see how humanity is building tech that was unthinkable of a few years ago.
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