Robot Actress Makes Stage Debut In Japan

Robotron23 writes "The BBC reports that a robot named Geminoid-F has made its acting debut (video) in Japan. The short play in which it appeared was a sellout with the Japanese public, who were curious to see the robot's performance. However an actress who co-starred pointed out that the lack of human presence made the droid difficult to act alongside."

Comments

Slashdot Users Like Sucking Horse Cock

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Slashdot, and fuck Linux.

Acting skills

[AnonymousClown]

The video picks on the android's acting skills, but I tell ya, give her bigger boobs and she'd be a natural for porn!

Oh Yeah! Japanese robot porn!

RULE 34!

Re:Acting skills

[Anonymous Coward]

The video picks on the android's acting skills,

I think this could easily be remedied by making the robot act scenes that needs robots.

We got rid of blackface, now let's get rid of metalface!

Re:Acting skills

[Anonymous Coward]

large boobs is an American thing, which is really silly for the rest of the world.
But the very contagious element in Japanese porn is if someone is "rape-pable". As you can see in many comics imported to America today.

Re:Acting skills

[Monkeedude1212]

Oh come on. That's not even Rule 34 worthy - that's just "Japan".

Rule 34 would be taking 5 or 6 of these things, making them have a massive orgy inside an F-22 Bomb-bay only to climax and spew battery acid all over the citizens of some city which inadvertantly destroys all their clothes which gets everyone horny and breaks out into an even bigger orgy.

And if that's not a rule 34 - then it's a Rule 35.

Re:Acting skills

[Anonymous Coward]

large boobs is an American thing, which is really silly for the rest of the world.

The emperical evidence of a quite immense amount of easily-findable hentai or Japanese-made drawings with quite immense amounts of breast in its characters, especially when said works were demonstrably not intended to be exported to America, seems to disagree with your assertion.

Re:Acting skills

[bar-agent]

The emperical evidence of a quite immense amount of easily-findable hentai or Japanese-made drawings with quite immense amounts of breast in its characters, especially when said works were demonstrably not intended to be exported to America, seems to disagree with your assertion.

But they also have immense amounts of:

• Dick-girls
• Tentacle-guys
• Jet-women
• Groping
• Vivisection
• Ghosts

The correct conclusion is not so much that America's big breasteses have world-wide appeal, as that the Japanese have hella fetishes.

And so it began... All My Circuits

[Starteck81]

I would go on to have a thousand and four season run.

Re:And so it began... All My Circuits

[zheng55]

very good shopping web==== http://www.shoesforking.com/ ====Believe you will love it.

Re:And so it began... All My Circuits

[FrostedWheat]

Surely you mean a thousand and twenty four season run?

Future is here

[badran]

So when will we be able to have Calculon?

Re:Future is here

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knows?

Yet somehow I suspect that some people are also looking forward to "Chobits - The Broadway Musical!" appearing on a theater marquee soon.

Re:Future is here

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Didn't you catch him in that hit series he did a few years back -- The X-Files?

Scary

[Yvan256]

The Uncanny Valley Effect is strong with this one.

Re:Scary

[Schmorgluck]

I, for one, welcome our creepy robotic overlords.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean that British human girl?
I agree, the Asian one is much more cute!

Re:Scary

[camperdave]

Reminds me of the scene in Terminator where they had an animatronic head of Arnold Schwarzenegger plucking out its eye.

Re:Scary

[IICV]

Seriously! Just look at that thing's primary manipulation appendage at about 0:22 to 0:25 - the wrist is completely wrong, the hand is not the hand of a thing that has ever lived. It's just plain horrifying.

Faces are one thing, and a lot of researchers have focused on getting those really good, so as long as the thing isn't moving it's actually passable. Hands, however, seem to currently be completely unreproducible. (even in games! Most NPCs have what seem to be sticky blobs with tendrils on the ends of their arms, even in the most ultra-realistic recent games)

Re:Scary

[bronney]

Buddy why do you fixate on the hands so much? For me though, I find their blinking crappy. It's not so hard to make a 1/500s blink with a servo is it?? Camera shutters do it all the time why can't they make the blinks more natural?

Re:Scary

[Carewolf]

I thought it looked like it was blinking intentionally slow. I would not be surprised if it had bedroom eyes on purpose.

Re:Scary

[Grr]

In games it's a matter of level of detail though (either for the CPU/memory or simply workload for the animators). A body skeleton typically consists of around 30 bones. If two hands with 5 fingers get 3 bones extra that doubles the load for relatively little effect. For a single player character it's still worth it. For NPCs it typically does not make the cut.
In animation each bone typically has 6 degrees of freedom so it is no problem to copy any hand movement. Doing the same with servos in robots at a natural speed and in a coordinated manner is a lot harder.

Re:Scary

[arth1]

Well, I guess it will attract lots of cats then.

But anyhow, I'm perplexed to read through 70+ comments here, and not find a single reference to Idoru.

Re:Scary

[mcgrew]

Faces are one thing, and a lot of researchers have focused on getting those really good, so as long as the thing isn't moving it's actually passable. Hands, however, seem to currently be completely unreproducible.

Which is is puzzling to me. I would think a lot more research would be done on useable, lifelike robotic hands for amputees.

Not The First

[The Wild Norseman]

Actually, the first robot actor ever was Keanu Reeves.

Re:Not The First

[gandhi_2]

No way Bells is bigger than Waimea brah.

Re:Not The First

[Anonymous Coward]

"Actually, the first robot actor ever was Keanu Reeves."

I think you mean Steven Seagal.

Re:Not The First

[stms]

No actually it was the Governor of California.

Re:Not The First

[Chatsubo]

Surely you mean Steven Seagal?

Re:Not The First

[Hognoxious]

No, it was Chuck Nor@^$
@
no carrier

Re:Not The First

[sorak]

Actually, the first robot actor ever was Keanu Reeves.

David Duchovney.

Re:Not The First

[mcgrew]

What about Robert Picardo and Brent Spiner?

Oh wait, they just play robots. The FA video won't play on this computer, but I bet it looks more human than Picardo did as Johnnycab.

What the director said

[DavMz]

The director said that this was the future of theater. You could have robots acting the way you envision it, without having to care with all the problems human actors tend to bring with him.
I saw it on the Japanese TV last night. My opinion is that if he doesn't like directing actors, he should look for another job.

Re:What the director said

[mug funky]

if the bot's performance is the sum total of the director's intent, they will suck.

directors prefer certain actors over others because of what they bring and how they interpret the material.

a director that is under the illusion of having complete control is a nightmare to work with, and they produce crap. ...that said, this robot's giving better performances than some i've seen.

Re:What the director said

[Yvan256]

I bet he would love to work with CNC mills.

Re:What the director said

[camperdave]

Has no one read The Darfstellar? This can only end in a human actor getting shot.

Re:What the director said

[kiddygrinder]

it's a good idea, but until you see a really good director screw it up it's a bit of a shot in the dark, i'm sure that at least one director as ruled with an iron fist and pushed out a good movie or two

Re:What the director said

[Bucc5062]

I have. In fact there was a line in that story that carries with me till today. The technician talking with teh actor in the projection room. The actor asks, "what happens when they make a black box to replace you". The tech replied, "I'd learn to make the black box."

Robots replacing actors, programs replacing programmers...the key is trying to look down the road and see what is coming so you can learn to "make the black box", the next change. Like any good/great Scifi, that book changed my view for a life time.

Re:What the director said

[LambdaWolf]

if the bot's performance is the sum total of the director's intent, they will suck.

directors prefer certain actors over others because of what they bring and how they interpret the material.

a director that is under the illusion of having complete control is a nightmare to work with, and they produce crap. ...that said, this robot's giving better performances than some i've seen.

Playing devil's advocate for a minute... what if the crap from control-freak directors happens only because they are attempting the impossible task of executing their vision through a human actor? What if you had a director with a complete and vivid image for how he wanted a role played, down to the last detail, and the technological wherewithal to implement that vision without needing to harangue a human actor into doing it for him? If you beat the uncanny valley, maybe it wouldn't suck. In fact, the creative process I just described is essentially animation, but with tangible robotic models (a necessity for stage productions) instead of pictures.

Also, consider that in some of the best movies out there—Citizen Kane, for example, and Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet is a personal favorite of mine—the director and the lead actor are the same person. This, in a manner of speaking, allows the director to direct the actor without a barrier of interpersonal communication. I find it interesting that it has that in common with a director programming a robotic actor. This technology will have to do a hell of a lot of maturing before any of this is useful in practice and the first several dozen productions to seriously attempt it will probably be nothing but crackpots, but it's food for thought.

Re:What the director said

[hal2814]

The director is right. This will be so popular that the robots could form a band and do a variety show. And just to get more people in the door, they could also serve pizza and have some kids games like Skee Ball and arcade machines and rides. And they could call it... Showbiz Pizza. The future is here indeed.

Re:What the director said

[mr_gorkajuice]

Lame article. A remote controlled robot will only ever be able to act as well as the person controlling it (and currently, it acts far worse).
Assuming it actually COULD act on it's own, and believably so, it still wouldn't replace human actors untill interfacing with it becomes more intuitive than simply yelling "I NEED MORE EMOTIONS!" at a real actor, who can actually, like, understand language, and has half a clue what these "emotions" even are.
The fact that the real actor states that it feels like being alone on the stage, seems a good indicator of just how unconvincing the robot is.
Maybe some day in the foreseeable future, we'll have an actual robot playing the part of a robot in a movie about robots. This article does not illustrate that we're close to anything beyond that.

robot or puppet or android or automaton?

[smoothnorman]

The thing is tethered with all manner of control cables, so it's just a high-tech puppet. Was howdy-doody a "robot"? ...and did buffalo-bob suffer a lack of 'human presence' with the marionette he had to act with?, hell-no. thems was proper saucy-puppet-shows back in the stone age... yep.

Re:robot or puppet or android or automaton?

[bennomatic]

I wish you could be modded up to 10. I've had the same problem with those battle bots shows; they're not robots, for geek's sake, they're remote controlled vehicles with remote controlled weapons systems. Cool and fun, but unless they stalk and kill their prey or defend themselves using pre-programmed algorithms (or learn to do so using pre-programmed algorithms), they're not robots.

Curious future effect, with cultural differences?

[sznupi]

In Japan there is apparently no Ship of Theseus-like paradox (at least if Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams is to be believed; not sure what appearance of said paradox in Ghost in the Shell might mean) - the essence of given object is quite firmly not related to materials from which it is (currently...) composed.

I wonder if such "robots" can/will be viewed by as the birth of "androids" - if some were to be constantly worked on, that is.

It would probably do a great job

[joeflies]

acting in the role of Caprica Six

Elephant in the room

[0olong]

I don't understand why Japan is so obsessed with creating androids, while (arguably) the most essential technology behind enabling interaction with humans; the AI field of Natural Language Processing is being glossed over (or at least not getting the amount of attention it deserves). Not just computers, but humans too (and Japanese people in particular) tend to have great difficulty handling the barriers that foreign languages pose to vast amounts of useful foreign data. A successful grammar independent NLP framework for data representation, now that should be a goal to focus on. Everywhere, but in particular in insular countries like Japan. Sorry for wandering off topic...

Re:Elephant in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

Give them a break! They have to build their own Gundams before they turn 16 for crying out loud.

Re:Elephant in the room

[wizardforce]

Japan's population is aging and getting smaller. From Japan's point of view, it makes sense to augment society's ability to cope with the increased workload by developing robots capable of doing a lot of the work.

Re:Elephant in the room

[hitmark]

The natural response to that would be to allow more foreign workers in, but Japan have a very long history of xenophobia. I recall reading about someone that would avoid mentioning what part of the city he lived in, as it used to be the a Korean district in feudal times and still carried a social stigma.

Re:Elephant in the room

[0olong]

From Japan's point of view, it makes sense to augment society's ability to cope with the increased workload by developing robots capable of doing a lot of the work.

Capable androids require NLP. Maybe a car analogy might help you: they're trying to invent an automobile by designing windshields and dashboards, instead of developing a working engine.

Re:Elephant in the room

[urusan]

A better analogy would be that they are trying to build cars using steam engines. The core technology isn't quite there yet, but there's not much that chassis developers can do to speed that up. In the meanwhile, they'll try things out and maybe they'll find some use for what they do come up with (if we put these steam cars on rails...) and maybe they'll come up with some useful stuff that speeds up development when the core technology matures (we need better lubrication than tallow for all these mechanical parts).

Anyway, the main thing they're interested in here is perfecting robot bodies, not the AI that controls them. People will never take cute robots as seriously as other people and anything less than nigh-perfect human simulations will fall straight into the uncanny valley. Fixing these problems requires a very different skill-set than fixing the problems of NLP.

Perhaps it will turn out that this work is ahead of its time, but even so the lessons learned today can be applied in the future.

Re:Elephant in the room

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Additionally, in case of Japan, the fear of immigration also probably involves a dose of claustrophobia.

Re:Elephant in the room

[thegarbz]

the AI field of Natural Language Processing is being glossed over

If you created the perfect female sex robot and taught it to argue with you, what's the point?

Re:Elephant in the room

[MacGyver2210]

If you watch further (and maybe understand some of what the director is saying) the android *IS* voice controlled.

There is plenty of work in Japan going toward speech processing both inbound and outbound. Vocaloid was an accidental discovery while trying to synthesize realistic human voice for an android.

Japan has a problem getting its next generations to take care of the previous aging generations that need assistance, so they are turning to robots to take over this niche. There are actually many domestic helper-bots already in service, and a majority of them respond to voice commands.

Re:Elephant in the room

[MacGyver2210]

It seems like for whatever reason, Japan doesn't trust foreigners to respect its traditions. In doing so, they completely disrespect the foreigners without giving them a chance. It's nearly a no-win situation with the only viable solution being to maintain a work visa for long enough to marry someone Japanese (and then wait some more) or just wait it out long enough to be granted citizenship (often 10 years or more).

Even this won't often stop the prejudice like "No Foreigner" shops and restaurants, or extensive police profiling based on race. God forbid you're white and you walk through Akihabara at 4AM...

Re:Elephant in the room

[Monkeedude1212]

I don't understand why Japan is so obsessed with creating androids, while (arguably) the most essential technology behind enabling interaction with humans; the AI field of Natural Language Processing is being glossed over

Because we're doing all of that stuff. Look at the turing test, westerners love it!

A large part of our communication is in body language. They're just focusing on making that possible from the robots perspective when we get around to it.

Re:Elephant in the room

[mcgrew]

It seems like for whatever reason, Japan doesn't trust foreigners to respect its traditions. In doing so, they completely disrespect the foreigners without giving them a chance.

My understanding of most foreign cultures is flawed, as the subset of most cultures I'm familiar with is restricted to "those who visit Disney World" where I worked for five years. But the Japanese I met in Florida seemed to have absolutely no respect whatever for our culture or traditions, and were without exeption the rudest people that I interacted with.

I mentioned that my view may be flawed; the Brits that came through were exactly the opposite; they were the most polite I met. South Americans came in a close second. But I have met some impolite South Americans since leaving Disney.

Re:Elephant in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

the AI field of Natural Language Processing is being glossed over

If you created the perfect female sex robot and taught it to argue with you, what's the point?

Practice* for real female humans?

*in every sense of the word.

Re:Elephant in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

The natural response to that would be to allow more foreign workers in

I don't know, you'd think the natural response would be to make more Japanese.

Re:Elephant in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

Other end of things. I travel to Japan FOR Disney. 95% of the people I interact with there are as polite as they could be.

Tourists might be a poor subsample. I see a lot of really rude American tourists in Tokyo, far higher percentage than I see here at home. And I'm in L.A.

Re:Elephant in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

When it became possible for young Japanese women to enter the workforce in their twenties, and keep living with their parents, or get a small place of their own, instead of immediately starting on the kids and family route, their birthrate dropped pretty significantly. They get to do the spend-your-twenties having fun thing now, and put off family making. Combine that with virtually no immigration and ...

I think their birthrate is something like 1.6 or 1.8 per couple now. Ours would be similar except for all the immigration we allow.

Re:Elephant in the room

[KDR_11k]

These are projects run by single dudes, that's enough to take an animatronic puppet, add a bit of programming and sell it as a robot but it's not enough to research properly difficult subjects like AI. Also it gets you in the news when your bot looks like a human, people got bored of AI advances in toy robots long ago and most laymen don't understand the difficulties the researchers have overcome.

Re:Elephant in the room

[q7h0u6h7]

I don't understand why Japan is so obsessed with creating androids, while (arguably) the most essential technology behind enabling interaction with humans; the AI field of Natural Language Processing is being glossed over (or at least not getting the amount of attention it deserves).

As it turns out, Japan has a history of and continues to be very active in speech and language research. The very first International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP) was held in Kobe, Japan. If you are interested, you can take a look at the academic affiliates and corporate sponsors of the International Speech Communications Association's 2010 science and technology conference (held in Makuhari, Japan) for a list of several Japanese (and non-Japanese) organizations currently active in speech science research and technology development (http://www.interspeech2010.org/Sponsors.html), since I am too lazy to list them myself.

Is it Monique?

[zmollusc]

Maybe she should star in yet another remake of the Stepford wives, only this time it is valuable robots being replaced by humans.

"Android", not "Robot"

[FrootLoops]

The Geminoid-F is an android, i.e. made to strongly resemble humans. When I first read the summary I thought it meant something like Asimo acting.

Re:"Android", not "Robot"

[gandhi_2]

Looks like we just found "that guy".

Re:"Android", not "Robot"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to be pedantic, it is a gynoid.

Re:"Android", not "Robot"

[FrootLoops]

Gynoid is so much less common than android I didn't want to use it. Android, on the other hand, is quite common.

Missed It By That Much

[Wordplay]

I was going to comment that she surely was the first robot stage actor, but wiki tells me Keanu played Mercutio in high school.

A robot that can act? that is old news.

[apn_k]

The question you should be asking now is, can she sing and dance? Cause from the look of things, the HRP-4C has it beat on both counts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcZJqiUrbnI

Re:A robot that can act? that is old news.

[realityimpaired]

Yes... they've invented a robot who can do the White Girl Shuffle. Call me when they have a robot who can do everything the background dancers were.

Why bother with a robot...

[atomicstrawberry]

... when you can already attend concerts with a singing and dancing virtual pop star that is only about half as creepy?

Hatsune Miku

[Anonymous Coward]

you should watch some of it: youtube.com/results?search_query=hatsune+miku.

Re:Hatsune Miku

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, an android is nothing, considering that Hatsune Miku, which is just an *application*, a piece of goddamn software, has already had live performances before.

"Gynoid", not "Android", not "Robot"

[Anonymous Coward]

The Geminoid-F is a gynoid, i.e. made to strongly resemble a hot piece of ass. When I first read your comment I thought it meant something like Keanu Reeves acting.

She's programmed to be...

[razberry636]

She's programmed to be very busy right now.

Animatroinc

[Sir Holo]

It's an animatronic, not a robot. The kind that theme parks have.

Re:Animatroinc

[dintech]

OK, so it's Westworld rather Terminator. I'm still scared.

Re:Animatroinc

[NoBullet]

Yeah i was about to say this. And Disney's is a helluva lot more impressive. Funny how the japanese version shakes around when it moves its head. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LepI9g62N7o

Re:Animatroinc

[Steauengeglase]

True. This thing is only capable of doing its one task (read script of facial/body movements and voice). The title might as well read, "Repurposed cash register with fancy face plate makes Stage Debut in Japan". Now if it can read the actions of other actors and deliver its lines based on their reactions, that is something completely different.

Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[lanner]

Can someone explain the obsession that the Japanese have with white people? It's like some form of self-inflicted racism or something. I don't get it.

Re:Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[masterwit]

First and foremost... by "cacasion" assume you meant "Caucasian", because using the root of "caca" that would be implying you think that robot looked like shit. (I mean this in the most humorous/friendly of ways haha)

Secondly, if you want to know, certain studies have shown that it is easier to recognize people that share (your) same race. It is not racism, it is art...if you were surrounded by people that were purple for most of your life, you'd likely model a purple robot with purple skin and purplish features - it is what you are most familiar with...

Jumping to conclusions and saying that the Japanese creating a Japanese look-alike robot is "self-inflicting" racism seems like a bit of a stretch to me...hell I'd say rather their artists are likely the majority Japanese that's all. America on the other hand generally has a more diverse workplace and may have a more diverse line of robots...if Androids were popular here.

Just my take, that's all.

Re:Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[aiht]

It seems the GP's tragically variable spelling skills have distracted you from his main thesis.
He's actually asking why the 'robot' (or android, or animatronic monster, or what-have-you) was made to look Caucasian, and not Japanese.

Re:Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you say that it is a white robot? If anything it looks mixed, but it could also pass for Asian, albeit with a 1950s hairstyle (have you seen actual photos of upper-class Asian women during that time period? They look like this). I would hazard a guess that whatever its facial features look like to you, is probably just a result of what they could do for the face, given that it's not a real face to begin with. If they were obsessed with making it white, it would have been blonde. Believe me. It would have been. Oh yes.

Re:Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks Asian to me (quite similar to the woman in the control room that was shown briefly). What do you suppose white people and Japanese people (or Asian in general) should look like? Let me guess, in your mind it's Brad Pitt vs. William Hung.

It may come as a shocker to you, but there are also plenty of Ozzy Osbournes and Takeshi Kaneshiros in the world.

Now tell me more about this alleged racism again. Is it in you, or the Japanese?

Re:Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[MichaelSmith]

It could be a commercial thing. Japan exports a lot of electronics and most it is aimed at westerners. It wouldn't pay for the robot to be designed to look Asian, even though its just a skin they stick on to the outside.

Re:Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[realityimpaired]

There's a weird idolization of white people in the Japanese culture that I've noticed among friends from that country. As a culture, they try to emulate whatever's better than them, and for some reason, dropping an atomic bomb on them convinced them that western culture was better.

That said, I do know Japanese people who do have that skin complexion, and the eyes are ambiguous, so there's nothing to say that the robot is supposed to be caucasian at all. It could simply be modeled after a Japanese person who doesn't have slanty eyes... they do exist, you know.

Re:Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[Internal Modem]

No Asians have slanty eyes. That is a Caucasian trait.

Re:Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[masterwit]

He's actually asking why the 'robot' (or android, or animatronic monster, or what-have-you) was made to look Caucasian, and not Japanese.

That makes sense...
But to me it would seem Japanese if it weren't for the hair, so now I am seeing this in a new light also...
...I wonder if this was done for some sort of marketing appeal?

Re:Why is that Japanese robot cacasion?

[Chris Burke]

Same reason all anime characters are Caucasion -- They aren't, you're just insular and programmed to recognize things of your own race. They actually much more closely match the traits of the Japanese, but because they don't match your own stereotypes of the Japanese very well (lemme guess, #1 thing you're looking for is they eyes, as opposed to say nose and jawline), they look more like white people to you. So it's not self-inflicted racism and an an obsession with white people on the part of the Japanese. It's racism and an obsession with white people on the part of white people. :P

And if you look at actual white people in anime, you may start to get the impression that they are much more likely racist against white people, not themselves.

Actroid F

[crf00]

I don't know much since most of the materials are in Japanese, but I think before this it is called Actroid F. There is a Youtube video on the late testing phase of Actroid F. Three months ago I also saw two obscure videos with translated title "Long Distance Service Terenoido" which I believe shows the early prototype of the robot. Through the videos of the naked robot we can see pretty clear why the robot can only sit still and not move it's hand.

It's a fancy puppet

[erroneus]

This is Jim Henson's muppets on steroids. It's an advanced and complex machine to be sure, but it doesn't do anything on its own. As the article shows/says, it is controlled by a person remotely. I fail to see the difference between this and any other puppet. There are robots that are programmed to respond to its environment, but this doesn't seem to be one of them. I don't think it's fair to characterize this as a "robot actor" until it can act. Wakamaru is a better actor.

Re:It's a fancy puppet

[ultranova]

I fail to see the difference between this and any other puppet.

Well, Kermit has more charisma and looks less creepy.

I don't think it's fair to characterize this as a "robot actor" until it can act.

Why hold the poor robot to a higher standard than a human?

mod DOwn

[Anonymous Coward]

'*BSD Sux0rs'. This ch[osen, whatever

Actually,

[u38cg]

...you're looking for Rossum's Universal Robots, which I am disappointed to note no-one has yet brought up.

Re:Actually,

[sempir]

mate...Rossum's were humans acting like robots acting like humans,,,,,Keanu is a human trying to act like a human!

Jmod d0wn

[Anonymous Coward]

create, manufacturE on baby...don't own lube, beverage,

Not very talented

[Hognoxious]

However an actress who co-starred pointed out that the lack of human presence made the droid difficult to act alongside

There are actors who've acted quite successfully alongside empty spaces - where the other character(s) will be added in later either manually or by CGI. They have to imagine the reactions.

Perhaps she's just not very talented?

Re:Not very talented

[am 2k]

Or perhaps it wasn't easy for those actors as well.

Re:Not very talented

[realityimpaired]

Acting alongside an empty space is a *lot* easier than acting alongside a robot that isn't actually looking at you, but rather through you. You can imagine something in the empty space and play against it, but when there's actually something in that spot that you're supposed to play against, it's nearly impossible to set up a proper dynamic when it isn't playing against you.

Re:Not very talented

[Hognoxious]

Gibberish, you utter fop. If you can imagine something where there's nothing you can imagine something else (or nothing) where there's something.

Re:Not very talented

[Chris Burke]

Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman both pointed out the difficulty of acting vs a green screen for the Star Wars prequels, and they certainly aren't the only ones.

So maybe they're just not very talented, or it actually is difficult.

Re:Not very talented

[Hognoxious]

Well if they can do it (and I mentioned above that some can do it) they're clearly more talented than someone who complains that they can't, you fuckwad.

Flash sucks...

[mangu]

Combine a flash video with a busy site and that's what you get. Why can't they just put a link to a mpeg file and let the browser use the normal video player?

Anyhow, the BBC being slashdotted seems a bit too much for me. If they want real time video they should first make sure that their servers can send out the bits at whatever rate is required.

Re:Curious future effect, with cultural difference

[hitmark]

GITS is carped bombed with references to western philosophy. I suspect it is much in the same way as how often a katana shows up in a hollywood action (in the hands of a aryan war god(dess) no less).

Seen better robots at Disney World

[michelcolman]

Seriously, can't they do better than that? A puppet sitting still, slowly moving its arms, lips and eyelids? Remote control from back stage? Did we somehow teleport back 20 years or so? There are already robots that can walk around and do all sorts of movements based on real time autonomous decisions, surely you can make one that does a series of realistic, pre-programmed movements for a play?!

Re:Seen better robots at Disney World

[Anonymous Coward]

'There are already robots that can walk around and do all sorts of movements based on real time autonomous decisions,..'

Oh no, not another Pelosi joke.

Re:Seen better robots at Disney World

[MacGyver2210]

None of them are truly bipedal AND look humanoid with everything down to facial expressions, and any bipedal robot is unstable at best. I can imagine it would be far worse to have a walking robot fall over and not get up than it would be to have it just remain seated.

I'm pretty sure the cables are just power, audio, and pneumatic air to drive the movement actuators.

Re:Seen better robots at Disney World

[michelcolman]

Well, TFA says that the actions of the robot were controlled from behind the scenes by a human. I do agree that actually walking around might have proven difficult (even the best models do still fall over from time to time), but this robot barely moves at all! And the movements that it does make, are jerky. In the video, it looks like the robot is not even moving its arm, but the actress is holding it. This is technology from a few decades ago.

Re:Seen better robots at Disney World

[Osgeld]

20 years ago, ever been to the hall of presidents? they are not that less conviencing and that is 1960's "robot" tech

speaking of which how is this the first? 50 years of animatronics anyone?

Missed it by 46 years?

[billius]

I fail to see how this is any different than Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, which Disney brought to the World's Fair in 1964. I suppose you have the added element of a human actor working alongside the animatronic, but I didn't see anything interesting. Mostly I just found the thing creepy...

I attended this "play"

[stimpleton]

The play went well, and the Robot actress was surprisingly seamless in her role.

There were a few hushed gasps when she snagged her blouse and revealed her arms were, in fact, two "Goal Keeper" Gatling guns, but apart from that, it was an enjoyable display of technology meets art.

OBep...?

[Anonymous Coward]

ple4Se moderate

#$!^@# commercial

[Porchroof]

The video link produced a commercial. I don't watch video commercials on the Internet...in fact I don't watch many commercials on TV either. Hence I wasn't able to see the robot.

Re:#$!^@# commercial

[Combatso]

oh no! an advertisement on the internet? what is this world coming to.. when will these people learn, commercial free media content is a basic human right

Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

It is ironic that the BBC is reporting this. Its news presenters have been droids for years:

"Buzzzz. Click click. Public spending good... austerity bad... whirrr"

"Tick tick clunk. Israel evil... America evil... must not mention Darfur... All crises the fault of the white man... beep beep"

"Gurgle gurgle boing... Must give more airtime to Polly Toynbee... Must pretend China no longer totalitarian... Must propagandise climate change using taxpayer's money... Big cars bad except when they're ours... EXCUSE ME you've put skimmed milk in my latte... MUST EXTORT TAX PAYER BY GOING ON STRIKE! MUST DESTROY ECONOMY VIA CHAMPAGNE SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA!!!! TARGET HUMANOID DEEE-STROY
DEEE-STROY!!11!"

Re:Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, yes.

Re:Ironic

[Fantastic Lad]

Gimme a break. What are you? A Turing Machine?

The tax payers want THEIR money to be spent collectively on THEM. -Not put into the pockets of military contractors and financial scam-artists, (banks). But refusing to get ripped off is somehow bad? Is somehow extorting the tax payer?

So-called "Conservative" thinkers like to believe they're good and responsible with numbers, yet never seem capable of doing the math on just how badly they're being ripped off. They don't even understand the basics of debt creation through money lending and how the whole thing, in every industrialized nation, is a deliberate con job established from the basement up. And if they do, -and this is the amazing part- they utterly fail to extrapolate what that means in any larger context.

The fact that those dots are difficult for you to connect means that YOU'RE the robot who has been successfully programmed to knee-jerk on any issue which sounds even slightly like Socialism. And for goodness sake! Fear of socialism? Get real! That anybody is still obsessing over single moms getting a 'free ride' is unbelievable. Your lizard buttons are being pushed with great finesse. Do you want crayons with that? The human brain has evolved the wetware to think beyond those simple and limiting paradigms. People are not muskrats and fish, and yet whole political movements encourage them to return to and embrace the laws of the jungle as though the whole bother of evolution was one big mistake. Psychopaths like that kind of thinking because they don't HAVE the wetware necessary for compassion, and they can't survive in a world where it's not all pure competition without any sort of balance. Fuck Psychopaths. They're responsible for the economic melt-down and the gulf disaster and the wars. If you can't see that, then you've either been conned or you're sporting your very own brain deficiencies.

You need to do more than just unplug from your TV. Hell, if you're still watching the Beeb, even in disgust, then you are miles away from your first clue.

Unplug, re-boot, re-think.

-FL

Re:Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you, fifteen?

Re:Ironic

[Fantastic Lad]

What are you, fifteen?

Yes. That's exactly what I am. I am fifteen.

I suppose it shouldn't come as any surprise that even a mere adolescent can have a more solid and cogent understanding of reality than the average myopic self-centered fart.

-FL

Re:Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

I would never argue with a fifteen year old who can use the word "cogent".

Re:Ironic

[Chris Burke]

It's not that big a surprise, but it's even less of a surprise that an adolescent would have convinced themselves that they have a superior understanding.

Re:Ironic

[Fantastic Lad]

It's not that big a surprise, but it's even less of a surprise that an adolescent would have convinced themselves that they have a superior understanding.

It doesn't take that much work to convince oneself of having a superior understanding. Any fool can do that, as the original poster neatly demonstrated. What DOES take work is being right; that requires transcending a bunch of automatic behaviors including selfishness and other fear-based emotions. I've never met a self-styled conservative who could counter even the most basic points I presented. (The bank question being at the top of that list). So they reduce themselves to ad hom bullshit and other stupid evasions and self-delusions.

Anyway.., anybody with a nice low UID like yours ought to know what ad hom implies about an argument and the failure to address it.

Sheesh.

-FL

Re:Ironic

[Fantastic Lad]

I would never argue with a fifteen year old who can use the word "cogent".

So you'd only argue with somebody who isn't capable of arguing back?

Careful; that's exactly how stupid ideas as evidenced in the OP's comments sprout wings and take flight into the winds of fancy. If you can't hold your own in a written debate, it probably means your ideas are junk.

-FL

This robot sounds perfect for

[Anonymous Coward]

The lack of human presence.. absence of soul.. stilted interaction.. .. the role of IT programmer!

Re:This robot sounds perfect for

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, if you'd ever been stuck on a team doing SSDD[0]-- Subsequent Sales-Driven Development[1] -- your soul and desire to interact with other human beings would whither and die, too!

[0]Nope, the initialism wasn't an accident
[1]Where the specification changes every time a new potential client wants something done differently. Which is every potential client.

It has begun...

[Anonymous Coward]

Skynet is here.

Pixellated pussy?

[mangu]

large boobs is an American thing, which is really silly for the rest of the world.

Japanese porn, OTOH, is characterized by bound girls and pixellated genitalia.

Shouldn't be too difficult, the robot is operated by wires, anyhow.

Chucky Cheese

[ohiovr]

Has prior art!

The reviews are in...

[Anonymous Coward]

So when a movie critic says the performance "was robotic", that's actually a good thing now?

I for one welcome our new robot understudies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Brad Dourif in Dune was mechanical. Had to be. "Landsdraad", heh.

Listen to MacGyver

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows Stargate SG-1 only died due to the actors wanting more than could be provided for them and getting older. Even the best shows die from age - robots offer a means to avoid this and I'm sure the cast of SG-1 are intimintly familiar with their current lackings, having been threatened with automation for a decade+

It's all about the body hair, man!

[Fantastic Lad]

Art emulates life.

Seriously; the subconscious tries to recreate and understand itself through art by creating something to look at and evaluate with the senses, thus giving the intellect something to latch onto. The so-called, "Mirror" people talk about when discussing art. It's SO true.

Japan and China are hyper-controlled societies, people take orders and cram themselves into the pre-designated roles with great facility, even obsessive drive.

I remember watching a video of a punk rock convention in Japan. There was a lot of dyed hair and studded leather. But the most astonishing part was this one shot where a couple hundred "Punk Rockers" were all doing an angry head-bangy dance, while all perfectly lined up, toes to a chalk line on the ground they were not supposed to cross as per the rules of their punk rock convention.

That said it all.

This is why, I think, when the big culling comes about, the last populations which will be allowed to live (in serfdom) will be Asian DNA groups. They've been genetically designed to obey better and repress each other better, while fearing openness, trust and love.

That robot video gave me chills in a very bad way.

-FL

Re:It's all about the body hair, man!

[Chris Burke]

Yes, Japan and China have societies where conformity is valued more than individuality. Quite a poignant observation you made about the punk rockers; this aspect even affects sub-cultures supposedly all about individuality.

Leaping from there to the square on your 'Jump to Conclusions' mat labeled "they fear trust and love" is hilarious in that insulting-but-okay-because-its-so-retarded way.

Good show. I look forward to future performances.

Re:It's all about the body hair, man!

[Fantastic Lad]

Leaping from there to the square on your 'Jump to Conclusions' mat labeled "they fear trust and love" is hilarious in that insulting-but-okay-because-its-so-retarded way.

It's not universal by any means, but I've spent a lot of time with different groups of Chinese Asians in a variety of different circumstances and honestly, the top-down pecking order structure is always a shade away from organized crime standards where one's guard must be up at all times even among, 'friends'. It's enough to make me want to kiss the Western Earth beneath my feet. If you haven't seen the kind of behavior I'm talking about, it can only be because you haven't looked.

It's a combination of genetics, a few thousand years of social programming and I think language as well. The words and methods we use to learn to write and speak wire our brains from a young age. And yeah, that's racist but it's also true. --It doesn't mean I hate anybody for it and it certainly doesn't mean that people can't choose against their genetic and social programming, (the amazing thing about souls is that they are very powerful in this regard), but it takes both awareness and will-power to step beyond one's mechanical nature. Very few people are capable of that no matter what land mass they happen to live on.

How's my performance keeping up?

-FL

Re:It's all about the body hair, man!

[Chris Burke]

Of course I've seen the behavior you speak of. Your conclusion remains a completely unsupported and completely retarded leap of faith. If you have seen this behavior and come to the conclusion that they -- because of genetics and society -- "fear trust and love" it's because you see only what you want to see and while you may have 'spent a lot of time' with these people, you haven't actually met them as people.

So, your performance is only increasing. I can't wait to hear your insistence that your viewpoint is undeniably correct. It should have them rolling in the isles.

Re:It's all about the body hair, man!

[Fantastic Lad]

Of course I've seen the behavior you speak of. Your conclusion remains a completely unsupported and completely retarded leap of faith. If you have seen this behavior and come to the conclusion that they -- because of genetics and society -- "fear trust and love" it's because you see only what you want to see and while you may have 'spent a lot of time' with these people, you haven't actually met them as people.

That feeling you're working from right now is called, "Alarmed Denial". The things I'm saying aren't allowed to be true because of what they imply and how that would damage your world view and your accompanying emotional state.

The logic is simple: Love and trust open one to attack in the group behavior you say that you have seen for yourself. The people we're talking about adopt behaviors which demonstrate avoidance and a shutting down of love and trust in order to avoid those attacks. This is entirely based on fear, which is entirely based on survival instincts. That's inescapable. Sorry. Unless you re-define all the words differently, then you're stuck with this conclusion.

Secondly, there are ONLY two factors available which teach these kinds of broadly observed social behaviors; Society and Genetics. That's it. Those are the only two choices. You can pick one over the other or vice/versa, nature versus nurture and all that, and that's your call. I pick both because I don't see how you can have one without the other; logic says that the symbiosis and interdependency are impossible to avoid.

If I've missed something, then do please enlighten me. But I've gone over and over this stuff looking for every way out, and I have found that the ONLY way to avoid these conclusions is to burrow into the comfortable delusion that, "All men were created equal". Sorry, but only cowards and fools cleave to illusions.

-FL

Doing "NakedNews" can be, uh, interesting...

[crovira]

The "skin" on the robot can be virtually anything so...

How 'bout giving the "actress du jour" some extra publicity?

It could be colored (and multi-colored at that,) a nice Navii blue.

In fact, it could be giving war news from the war zone. "She done blowed up real good!"

Why use a human being at all?

We could get our financial news from "Goofy©(TM)®", describing the Wall street latest melt down that has just wiped out your life's savings.

How about "Donald Duck©(TM)®" giving us the political news from Washington? His quacking would make as much sense as the politi-pundits we're subjected to without having to be understandable.

We can get "Quick Draw McGraw©(TM)®" giving us the police report?

Tech news? Get "George Jetson©(TM)®" to act it out for us.

Who needs a robot when we can do it in CG?

Get the hook!

[crovira]

Seriously dude, do you think doctors are the kind of people who give a shit about somebody's hands? Amputees are lucky to get the hooks. (But you shouldn't wonder about the "incredibly lifelike dildos" and the "Fleshlight"!)

Is he Haley Mills' brother?

[crovira]

Sorry I couldn't resist.

Futuristic Sex Robotz - Hotel Coral Essex

[crovira]

"Welcome To The Internet" just came flowing into my earphones.

How apropos.