Yamaha’s new humanoid robot, Motobot, just learned to ride a motorbike and already it’s talking trash. At the recent Tokyo Motor Show where Motobot was unveiled, it announced that the reason it was created was to simply “surpass you.” Presumably, that means piloting a 1000cc Yamaha R1M around a racetrack at over 200kmph, and beating MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi.

Blathering on in a voice font crafted to ambiguous perfection, Motobot further inquires of us: “There has to be something only I am capable of?” Indeed there is one, and perhaps only one edge that Motobot now has on the track — it can’t die. While that advantage is a power that should never be underestimated in human-robot interaction, it’s going to take a lot more than courage to best a real rider around the track.

Without an impressive flagship robot, many Japanese companies might be devoid of vision. For nearly a decade, engineers everywhere have been inspired to greatness by the dance moves sported by Honda’s Asimo robot. Toyota’s equally impressive violin-playing robot delicately displays just how good predictive servo loops fed by 1,000+ encoder ticks-per-rev can be. However, actual sport usually entails a bit more than just cuing up a pre-programmed sequence or rant.