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Robot Receptionist with an Attitude

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the bringing-you-more-hecklers dept.

techno-vampire writes "Carnegie Mellon University is experimenting with a robot receptionist with a personality. The article on NPR tells about the receptionist, named Tank. Tank lives in a computer, with a Frankenstein-like face showing on the monitor. He responds to typed-in questions, including personal ones, with a rather curious personality courtesy of the Drama Department. Among other things, he doesn't seem to like his boss, Dr. Reid Simmons, very much. If asked, Tank will tell you he's also worked at NASA, and failed as a satellite robot. A job at the CIA was also a bust. Dr. Simmons explains that they're trying to make it easier for people to interact with robots, and upgrades are planned."

8 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. In the near future... by Red+Samurai · · Score: 4, Funny

    We'll all have robots pissing in our coffee...

  2. Great! by jacobcaz · · Score: 5, Funny

    Our receptionist is already surly and a bit gruff, we can replace her with "Tank" and dramatically increase our gruffness-to-customer ratio! We'll also be able to irritate our customers 24x7 instead of the normal 8x5 we currently get out of our receptionist!

  3. now with... by PoPRawkZ · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now with genuine people personality! I'm so depressed.

    --
    peace,
    -Grokent
  4. Not that different from previous roboceptionist by Agelmar · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is really not that new. Before the current roboceptionist, we had Valerie. I really can't tell the difference between the two - when they first installed Tank, I thought it was a Halloween joke. (He looks somewhat like Frankenstein on the monitor). There is a different face and a different voice, but it seems the same. If you ask "Will it rain tomorrow" he will either not understand your question, or give you the current weather. Trying to find out tomorrow's weather is still rather difficult. Yes, it is an interesting experiment, and yes, it can give directions (rather clearly) to various locations on campus, but it's not at the point where secretaries need to worry about losing their jobs (yet).

  5. Wakamaru by digitaldc · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n ews/2005/12/26/wrobot26.xml

    Wakamaru is a bit friendlier than tank and acts as a security guard.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  6. Do we really need one? by Antony-Kyre · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, great idea. Create a robot to deal with customer service, one of the real jobs that shouldn't be replaced by robots. Replace the menial jobs that don't matter with robots, i.e. McJobs.

    1. Re:Do we really need one? by vertinox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, great idea. Create a robot to deal with customer service, one of the real jobs that shouldn't be replaced by robots. Replace the menial jobs that don't matter with robots, i.e. McJobs.

      Actually you couldn't be more wrong. Most customer service skills are outsourced to foreign countries as it is. Replacing those jobs wouldn't affect our market that much. (trust me... my old call center with an unnamed major ISP layed everyone off right after I quit and outsourced to India... I do still tech support over the phone, but if I got replaced with a robot it wouldn't bother me that much since most of the people that are in CS or TS phone support hate their jobs anyways and spend most of the day browsing monster.com at work)

      Secondly, a Robot would put up with shit that human would not. Screaming... Cursing... All that stuff that customers do without retorting or walking off the job. Hell it would have an "American accent" and have better english skills than you or I.

      However the trick is to fool the customer into believing the person is an uber happy person willing to give them their proverbial first born which means the thing will have to pass a turing test... ...which means not any time soon.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
  7. Speech synth still lacking by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Interesting
    If you RTFA, there's a link "Listen" with audio of the NPR piece. I'm surprised that they're using a speech synth that sounds like it's at least ten years behind the times, as? well? as? sounding? like? every? word? is? a? kvestion?? The Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice engine that MS gives away with SAPI4/Agent is arguably better, and that's 1998 tech from a dead company. (L&H, not MS.)

    A good speech synth would add a lot to Tank's personality. (On the other hand, I have 1980s tech card that would sound awful but very robo-retro.)

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.