I thought Asimo, the Honda robot, looked cute conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra last week, notwithstanding the gripes of music critics. It will, of course, be decades – if ever – before robots are regularly filling such roles, but the possibilities are seductive.

Refereeing at football or rugby might be too energetic, but umpiring at cricket seems tailor-made for robots. Much of the technology already exists – Hawkeye for leg-before-wicket decisions, the Snickometer for catches, television replays for run-outs and light meters for deciding when it is too dark to play. It would take sophisticated programming, though, to decide whether a ball had been deliberately tampered with.