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

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...

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.

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Lucy's home page

[morcheeba]

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

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...

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.

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.