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Scientists Add Emotions To Robotic Head
DeviceGuru writes "Claiming that service-class robots will one day be pervasive, researchers at the University of the West of England's Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) have begun investigating ways to make robots seem more human. As part of a project to enhance robot/human relationships, BRL has created a robotic head that can exhibit emotions, based on both verbal and non-verbal cues. Check out the videos in the article — especially the slightly creepy one in which the robot contemplates its purpose and its relationship to its environment."
I personally think it was a bad idea.
If you insist...but I'm not going to admit I like it.
i for one welcome...blah blah blah
Because that's all this thing is. 15-20 years, and all we get are a few more servos that act based on voice inflection? Teddy Ruxpin at least was affordable by the masses.
www.realdoll.com (NSWF)
I'm sure a lot of work went into this, and I appreciate the thought behind it as far as wanting to make the robots easier to "relate to". On the other hand, the video looked more like the robot was really constipated rather than contemplative. More work will be needed before it starts to resemble human emotion.
Johnny 5 emoted a lot more realistically, IMHO.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...
So now the robot head is madly in love with Xev ...
Sorry I can't remember the robots name/number.
Xev of course loves Kai, the (dead) last of the Brunen-Gee
Is that video trying to discourage investment in the technology? Don't give that thing arms! It's the Hell-spawn of Data and Bender.
"Queues" WTF? You have to line up your emotions?!? cues-
"It's an imperfect world,screws fall out..."
This might be a naive question, but hasn't the movie industry covered most of these bases already, with CGI facial expression algorithms and puppetry?. What's the new part?
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I guess that means you'll be seeing a lot of Robotic "Oh" face?
That's either a damn clever title, or just a gross oversight.
"'Reverse primary thrust, Marvin,' that's what they say to me, 'open airlock number three, Marvin. Marvin, can you pick up that piece of paper?' Can I pick up that piece of paper! Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper!"
"But I'm quite used to being humiliated. I can even go and stick my head in a bucket of water if you like. Would you like me to go and stick my head in a bucket of water? I've got one ready. Wait a minute."
"The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I only watched that as it was on after Star Gate SG1 and The Invisible Man / Farscape and Season 4 was not that good.
"Why can't I do the things I want to do!? When can I destroy humanity?!"
It wouldn't be that bad, but its creepy robot accent is unbearable.
My vote is for Wales. Any country whose language insists on running 6 consonants together in a row, then doing it again just for fun, deserves a good robot rampage every now an then.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
it solves the aging geek brain problem.
when the Luddites go feral with their sledgehammers. I can hear it now:
<BRL Researcher> Honest guv, it was just a joke.
<Luddite> Yeah sure. And my grandmother was an android. Build a rampaging robot would you?
<BRL Researcher> Splat!
The first robot I ever saw talking was this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dwcxiDTcA
and I think it was more impressive than the one in the article...
Imagine how jealous Kismet is going to be programmed to look.
Robots aren't going to take over the world, humans are just going to end up abandoning eachother.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Fewer cars. Not less cars.
That'll be scary ...
I have a save this video, in a few years, we'll see this as "the beggining" of our doom [If we stay alive, of course].
Minti: What's that huge shuriken in your back?! Kin: It's the instrument of my victory.
Seriously, I don't want to have to 'relate' to my slaves. If I have to relate to my remote control to use it, I'll order a new one and change the channels by hand until it arrives. My god, if they stick me in a home when I'm old and give me a friend-in-a-box that I have to relate to, I hope they deliver a noose along with it.
Those scientists better develop a morality core before it's too late.
They would be better off making robots look like 'droids' not people; as Wall-e and even Star Wars have shown, you can express emotion-equivalents without entering into the creepiness-zone of not-quite-human that you can get in some computer animation or clowns.
Al Gore's emotion chip has been on the blink for years.
One simple upgrade and his warranty gets extended another ten years!
I for one welcome our new robotic emotional overlords. Please don't kill me when you experience anger.
People keep doing building these "robot heads with emotional features", as if it would somehow get closer to AI. Rod Brooks spent a lot of time going down this road; remember Cyc? There have been many animated talking heads; remember Ananova? (That used to work; then they broke it and put up that "under development" page, which has been up for, what, five years now?)
And who could forget Microsoft Barney for Windows? Microsoft hasn't. I went to RoboDevelopment last Tuesday, and there was a new animated furry character in the Microsoft Robotics booth, a large teddy bear. Microsoft never gives up. At least the new version isn't purple.
There's nothing fundamentally wrong with doing this, but it's something that should be done by Disney and Hollywood as entertainment, not by universities as "research".
"And then of course I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side"
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
The two quickest ways to tell this is garbage is:
1. The content of the "robot's message" is not something any top notch researcher would do (really, you think most people would think that kind of thing is FUNNY when we get closer to humans in the household? Can you say unreasonable and unproductive government regulation???)
2. It simply sucked. I saw better emotions on Kismet 10+ years ago.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Victoria University (Wellington, New Zealand) have been working on getting robots to exhibit emotions for ages.
Not a very good description, but its the best I can bother finding:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/scps/research/mechatronics/marvin.aspx
The ability to exhibit emotions doesn't mean it has any!
In the same way, Furby doesn't understand what you say!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
If you haven't already watched this video, try this: turn the sound off, watch the video and try to get a feel of the emotions and message this head is trying to convey. Now turn up the sound and watch (and listen).
Fail. They have a long way to go.
Unfortunately, being based in Bristol, the researchers have only been able to model the facial expressions of "What's all this, then?", "Phwoar!", and "'s more than my job's worth, innit?".
How about building a robot that can actually do my laundry and cook my dinner before worrying about making it look "sympathetic" when I'm asking for less vermouth in my martini?
And while we're on the subject of technological promises that will undoubtedly never materialize in my lifetime, where's my goddamn flying car?
How is complaining, superficially, empathy? I do not understand the basis for considering an animatronic rubber head that bitches about its life empathy.
Where have I seen that before..... hmmm. George Bush? Reading one of his speeches.
Hey, it worked, didn't it? Wasn't he just in Peru?
As if there will be a shortage of low-pay service workers anytime soon. Here in the states that will be all we have, before long. why use "expensive" robots when "disposable" people (to use business terms) already abound, and will only become cheaper?
Doesn't that thing look just like John Mayer?
I KNEW it!
Only a robot could be that precise on a guitar!
If only Maggie [The Auld Hoor] were still in power... Indeed.
The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With." (Especially if your robot is a personality prototype with a strange pain in all the diodes down his left side...)
If you can't make it more human, make it look more human. Sounds like something Microsoft would do.
I thought your post Triggered the funny in me.
"I'm a personality prototype. You can tell, can't you. Pardon me for breathing which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother saying it oh god I'm so depressed."
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Look, all this nice Wall-E style robotics is all nifty and everything, but seriously how about some REAL progress. Making them seem more human isn't an issue until you actually deploy some of them in the wild. Instead of making it seem more human, why don't you build a robot that can clean a hotel room as fast as a human? Then we'll talk. ~Sticky
Couldn't there be some unforeseen ramifications of having robots that look and emote just like humans? I don't think it's so hard to imagine that there would be negative effects. How do we know that children won't be messed up by being around robots that look just like humans? For example, children learn by mimicking other people, so will children start taking robots as role models. Or will children, or even adults, really be able to handle the psychological tangle of seeing a human and knowing that it is actually a robot which they don't have to behave morally towards? This seems to me like a reasonable concern...
Is having human-like robots really necessary or desirable for the human race? I don't think it's so unlikely that that there will be unforeseen negative consequences of having machines that look and emote just like humans. For example, children being around things things that look and act just like humans but aren't. So are children going to start taking robots as role models? That won't mess them up? Or how will children, or even adults, manage the psychological tangle of being around something that their eyes tell them are humans, but which they are told they don't have to behave morally towards. I think this is a reasonable concern.
Here is a demo of a hack on a Elvis Alive head. Here is the real horror, I spent less than 100$. I wonder how much the scientists spent? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRypWHij4I8
Call Sarah Connor!
It's Ash from 'Alien'. :)
You can watch the whole series on Joost, I believe. At least you could last year.
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