Meet Lucy, The Orangutan Robot

Roland Piquepaille writes "Lucy is not an ordinary robot, driven by software. She's a pure product of artificial intelligence (AI). And after a three-year long training, she's now able to make a difference between an apple and a banana, which is quite handy for an orang-utan, even if she doesn't eat them. Her five microcontroller chips wouldn't like this... In "A Grand plan for brainy robots," BBC News Online tells us that Lucy is the brainchild of Steve Grand, an honorary research fellow at Cardiff University's School of Psychology. And why did he choose an orang-utan design? "I made Lucy as an orang-utan because, can you imagine how scary it would be if she looked like a human baby?," said Grand. More details and references are available in this overview which also includes the cover of Grand's last book, 'Growing Up with Lucy: How to Build an Android in Twenty Easy Steps,' which was already reviewed on Slashdot."

Comments

Best quote in article...

[jhouserizer]

Best quote in the article: "I like 'intelligent' people. It's the thick ones that worry me."

Heh

[Ash87]

"Meet Lucy, The Orangutan Robot."

Contender for best story title? =D

The final test...

[ackthpt]

she's now able to make a difference between an apple and a banana,

The final test will be if she can pull the football away just before Charlie Brown tries to kick it.

that or rip his legs off...

Re:The final test...

[ozbird]

The real final test is for the robot to know what the fruit is, but is able to lie about it:

Lister: OK try again what is it?
Kryten: It's a banana
Lister: No it isn't. What is it?
Kryten: It's a banana
Lister: No it isn't! What is it?
Kryten: It's an orrrrrr its an orrrrrrr
Lister: It's an orange say it. IT IS AN ORANGE.
Kryten: It's an orrrrrr it's an orrrrrr It's no use sir I can't do it
Lister: You can. I'm going to teach you. (Puts down banana picks up apple) Ok what is it?
Kryten: It's an apple
Lister: No No No. What is it?
Kryten: Oo it's no use sir I just can't lie I'm programmed to always tell the truth.
Lister: Kryten it's easy look. (holding an apple) It's an orange (picks up orange) it's a melon (holding a banana) it's a female aardvark.
Kryten: Oo that is just so superb sir. How d'ya do that, especially calling a banana an aardvark. An aardvark isn't even a fruit. It's total genius.

King Louie's head on a toaster oven. Creepy.

[The I Shing]

It doesn't need a baby's head... it's creepy enough as a primate.

I haven't been this creeped out since the first time I saw that Quiznos Subs commercial.

And what's with that glowing blue Terminator eye? Imagine that thing chasing Linda Hamilton around.

Your clothes... give them to me... I'll take that banana, too...

Can't he cover that thing with fur or something? Make it look like a toy instead of like something out of madman's nightmare?

Re:King Louie's head on a toaster oven. Creepy.

[rjelks]

OMG, I followed the link and yikes. It looks like a combination of the Terminator, Chucky and some scary-assed monkey thing. Very cool idea, but I'm going to have nightmares about this one.

-

Lucy's home page

[morcheeba]

Lucy's home page is an even better place for technical details, including an anatomical overview and scrapbook pictures

scary

[AnonymousCowheart]

he said: "can you imagine how scary it would be if she looked like a human baby?"
did you guys look at the picture of that thing? It looks like my mother-in-law! Thats friggen scary! I guess he spend all the money on research, and not on matching eye's.:)

If his goal was...

[Atario]

...to avoid being scary, he's failed miserably.

Can't sleep...orangutan robot'll kill me...can't sleep...orangutan robot'll kill me...can't sleep...orangutan robot'll kill me...

Are there any...

[incom]

opensource AI projects? It'd be interesting to play around with something, even very primative. It' would need to be OSS so I could actually modify it though.

Realistic features to be added to Lucy 2.0:

[mystery_bowler]

- Incredible tree-climbing ability
- Facial-gesture mimicry
- Pick parasites out of fur (useful!)
- Poo-flinging

And I don't know if it's all orangutans, but the ones at my local zoo have an affinity for tire swings. They wear through the rope and then roll the tire into the safety moat.

Hi. I'm Troy McClure

[Anonymous Coward]

hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such robot-apes movies as "Bedtime for Bender" and "Bananabots: Gorilla Rampage"

That Robot violates the #1 rule of robotics

[Lord_Pall]

That it not be absolutely terrifying looking.

Bat-Shit Terrifying

[Enigma_Man]

That is one of the most frightening things I have ever set eyes on in my entire life. I can't imagine that a baby would have been even _more_ terrifying. Look at the cover of the book. It resembles the aliens from "Mars Attacks" to me. Also, according to the article, Frankenstein is a robot? I always thought he was a meat-bag like us? And, do we all have to refer to the hour-too-long movie "AI" every time Artificial Intelligence is referenced? Would it be infringement otherwise? Yeesh, I can't stop looking at that train wreck of a face... haunt me all night. -Jesse

Question WRT development language

[NecrosisLabs]

Is she programmed in Ook?

At least they're thinking ahead

[robson]

Considering that the real ones are headed for extinction, at least we'll have some facsimile as a reminder.

(Not sure whether I should follow that with a winky-face or a sad-face.)

The Japanese do it right

[macshune]

I don't know if this is a trend exhibited by the majority of Japanese android/robotics researchers, but from what I've seen they tend to follow a no-face design ethic that I'm most pleased with. I think it's safe to say that most people would find anthropomorphic robots that don't look 100% identical to people (there's something off with that one) very creepy.

And besides, these Japanese robots look way cooler and have this implied subservience about them, at least to me. It's a lot harder to humanize and attach (scary) emotion to something that's faceless and non-human looking, rather than something that looks like a hairy/scary-ass rendition of a planet of the apes extra.

Re:The Japanese do it right

[Yokaze]

I don't think it is a particular ethic, as there research insitutes which concentrate on the facial part alone. IRC, the reasoning for the no-face design is, that when a robot has an actual face, people are trying to interprete its expressions. A hard to read face gives people a bad feeling. So, they are developing independently from the robots faces which can express "feelings".

Robots have a different association in Japanese culture. In Western pop culture the first reference to a robot I can think of is Maria from Metropolis, in Japan Astro Boy. So, I'd say the bad feeling is also partly rooted in culture.

> It is a lot harder to [...] attach [...] emotion to something that's faceless and non-human looking, [...]

Um, I'd like to refer to Tamagotchis. It is not uncommon that people attach feelings to things.

I would bet

[nate nice]

I would bet that the thought of a baby would be on the order of 1,000,000 times of that of this robot. And probably 100,000 times that of a real Orangoutang. Obviously I have absolutely no backing for those figures. As for AI, the studying I have done has made me conclude it's a failed, crack science at this point for people who really have no concept that a brain doesn't act like a computer, or a computer programmed to act like a brain. In order for this to work we have to be able to quantify a brains element, chemicals etc and we haven't much idea of most of these anyways, and if we do we don't have a clue as to how they function together.

I'm just sick of recursive "best yet" algorithms that claim to be AI when in fact it's nothing more than deduced logic and we are, thankfully, a but deeper than that.

So, go ahead and study AI as perhaps one day something may come of it but be realistic in that you're becoming skilled in a clever art of trickery and deterministic patterns. Good luck!

Thanks, BBC

[barryfandango]

"... the cutting edge of artificial intelligence or AI, a title used by Steven Spielberg for his 2001 film starring Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law."

Now that's good journalism: a little background about the history of AI for the lay-people who might be reading this article.

Brain Farts?

[Surak_Prime]

It has occurred to me, whenever the subject of AI is broached, that scientists seem to be doing a bang-up job of heading towards replicating the proper function of a brain in computer hardware, but none of the projects I've seen try to replicate the errors that result when the brain cell sending or receiving a message dies, is replaced incorrectly, is deformed one way or another, or is subject to any of the other myriad flaws of flesh.

Could it be that sentience, in the end, is the result of brain farts?