Freaky! This new robot moves just like a 1-2 year old child and responds to touches on the shoulder with a nervous glance. Over 50 motors control its muscle movement, and over 200 sensors embedded in his soft, silicone body respond to touch, hearing, and smell.
The company hopes to use this robot to understand child development and child behavior better. Watch out for its successor in four years time—it's gonna know how to play kiddy games and speak baby talk.
I love the endearing look the guy who touches his shoulder give him. That, to me, is the greatest indicator that one day humans will be buying robots instead of having real babies. Real babies need constant attention and grow up and become adults. Who wants that? There's a reason why there are more pet dogs and cats in Japan than children these days, and that same reason may one day spawn the rise of a robot kingdom.
(Thanks, Jason!)
The engineers must have to design so many different algorhythms for each single response, ie: if somebody touches the shoulder, look in that direction. If somebody holds the hand, make a noise.
I feel like they're going in the wrong direction, attempting to build everything bottom-up. Instead, programmers should be finding patterns in human nature that allow these types of robots to learn, starting as babies, and actually learning to adapt to their environments...
THAT would be scary. Otherwise, these robots are simply mannequins.
Posted by: yujean | June 05, 2007 at 07:05 AM