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Android Copy of Young Woman Unveiled In Japan
An anonymous reader writes "According to IEEE Spectrum, Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, who had previously built a robot copy of himself, has now created a new android — and it's a 'she.' Geminoid F, a copy of a woman in her 20s with long dark hair, exhibits facial expressions more naturally than Ishiguro's previous android. 'Whereas the Geminoid HI-1 has some 50 actuators, the new Geminoid F has just 12. What's more, the HI-1 robot requires a large external box filled with compressors and valves. With Geminoid F, the researchers embedded air servo valves and an air servo control system into its body, so the android requires only a small external compressor.' It's also much better looking. Has the Japanese android master finally overcome the uncanny valley?"
I want one that looks like my girlfriend! Man, I'm gonna hack myself a mute-button into this one :D She's gonna be like, perfect!
My dreams of a robot girlfriend are one step closer to being actualized
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
Since it's from Japan, I assume you can have sex with it, and it will be on the market in three months.
Has the old saint in his forest not yet heard of it? That God is dead?
I'm down with my real doll android, aka Cherry 2000, being able to go get me a beer and thrust back, but as soon as she starts yappin at me, it's back to the whores.
Ave Molech Setting
Does the android come with the tentacle monster? Or is it sold separately?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
So... how much longer till they produce one that passes the Voight-Kampff test?
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
Just check out the uncanny valley on that one!
No.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...is she anatomically correct ??
It doesn't really matter ... someone will find a way to screw it even if it's sealed tighter than an iPad.
This is exactly the valley. It looks like a robot. The valley is huge, and it won't be solved by 12 actuators. Unless you're mostly blind.
Having had my ear to the ground in robotics for the last few years, it seems to me that this is a wasted effort. Much more fundamental problems in robot-human interaction, basic things like being able to track a moving object in the room, or walking on two legs without having each movement preprogrammed, have yet to be solved reliably. Even if she looked perfect, the fact that she'd trip and fall over any unexpected bump in the floor and won't have the software to make eye contact or shake your hand will make the valley very very deep.
The eyes seem better than his last effort, but the mouth area is really where it falls short. There isn't enough subtlety in mimicking muscle movements around the lip area, and the mouth opening and closing is a real giveaway. Although the jaw hinge seems a bit off, I think what's really going on is the lack of skin movement during articulation. The "skin" not visibly stretching creates a plastic, robotic appearance. Still, it's interesting work. I don't agree that we should be making robots that look like people though. It seems like a conscious attempt at anthropomorphism, and even if the physical appearance eventually becomes flawless, there will always be an uncanny valley in the way the robot fails to act with human subtlety.
CGI animators, in some sense, have a much easier task then the roboticist. Its much easier to program a full musculature into an animated character than to physically build a robotic one.
The difficulty of all this is exemplified by Robert Zemeckis' dismal "Polar Express" and "A Christmas Carol". Even when capturing hundreds of control points on the faces of the actors, you're still left teetering on the edge of the Uncanny Valley.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Avatar" were more successful because they did complete surface capture of the actors faces rather than point-capture.
Which gets back to the difficulty of making robots appear human. Its the same problem, magnified 1000 times by the fact that, in essence, you have to pack the equivalent of a millions of "control-points" into the robots face.
Not an easy task.
-Sean
If it runs Windows you'll end up getting viruses. If it runs something Apple you'll pay for updates (or monthly fees). If it runs Linux you'll have to spend an insane amount of time with it to make it right.
At least with this you get to choose which of the three you want to deal with, whereas with a real life relationship, well, you might get all three at once.
I certainly hope this story doesn't turn into a modern day retelling of Pygmalion .
-Valen