Sony's Robot Attends Pre-School

Darren writes "Sony's Qrio humanoid robot has been attending a Californian pre school to play with children under the age of 2 since March to test if robots can live harmoniously with humans. I wonder if the testing includes monitoring the 'nightmare status' of the pre-schoolers?"

Comments

Re:Motivation?

[bechthros]

"what needs do the robots have? Why should they try to improve upon themselves?"

Because they've been programmed to, presumably. Our emotions, limbic system, and nervous system are nothing more than very low-level instruction sets to force us to behave in a certain manner in response to certain stimuli. I imagine that for a robot, not following a programmed instruction would be about as possible as a human's knee not flexing when hit with a hammer. It's just a reflex.

This is all assuming that these robots have the ability to alter their own code, I'm not sure that's the case.

Less than 2 feet - weighs less than you'd imagine.

[reality-bytes]

QRIO is apparently just a little shorter than 2 feet tall and weighs only 6.5kg (about 14lbs) with its power pack installed.

So, even if the robot went 'dead' and fell rigidly from its full height, it would probably, at worst cause a small bruise to a kids knee.

However, having read a bit on QRIO, the robot knows when it is going to, or is being forcibly overbalanced and takes apropriate action to soften its fall (hands out) and even contort to avoid objects it is falling toward.