You may not have heard of Hanson Robotics, but if you are reading this, you’ve probably seen their work. This company built the robot Sofia, a humanoid Android that has appeared at public events. Before this, the company built a robot that was similar to the Asimo head is albert Einstein or seen BINA48, who gave an interview to the New York Times in 2010. They even made a replica of the legendary writer Philip K. dick (you know him).
In other words, Hanson Robotics with their signature brand of creation of humanoid robots, very settled in this field. And the more it hurts to watch them progress. Anyone with the slightest communicate with the robot understands that it is essentially a chat-bot, with all its limitations. Even during the interview with BINA48 author Amy Harmon described the experience as disappointing “rare (and sometimes thrilling) moments of understanding.” This feeling is familiar to anyone who’s ever talked to a chat bot and got a few reasonable answers.
Under the glossy surface there is no real intelligence; although at first glance, of course, the car seem smarter than it really is. If you delay this surface layer is in the case of the robot Hanson — you retard Frubber. It is a patented substance (Rubber Flesh — literally “flesh rubber”, creepy) — is incredibly complex. To manage the person involved to thirty motors; they manipulate liquid cells to make the skin soft, supple and capable to show different emotional expressions.
Fast combinatorial view of 30 engines will display millions of possible combinations; the researchers identified 62 of them as “human” Sophia, although not all agree with this statement. Of course, technical experts, recreating facial expressions in the image of man in the robot, surpassed simple engine chat-bots, but they did not scruple to program several issues that exceed the expectations of the interlocutor after a meeting with the robot.
Hanson Robotics believes that ultimately a lot of what people attribute to robots, will depend on their faces and voices, as well as from what they say. “The perception of the personality incredibly is closely linked to the perception of the human form,” says David Hanson, founder of the company.
Anybody who is trying to create a robot that will not scare people, must cope with the uncanny valley — a strange mixture of concern and disgust that comes from people when they see something close to man, but man is not. Between cartoon humanoids, and these people have a restricted area of aesthetics robots.
The concept of the uncanny valley presented the robotics expert Masahiro Mori, who insisted on the fact that robotics do not try to exactly reproduce a person. Since everything is not perfect, but very good, will give people a strange feeling, the only way to get rid of this effect is to abandon attempts to create the perfect.
From the point of view of the brain, the idea underlying this psychological horror is quite simple.
We know how to categorized the things that are uniquely human or non-human. It comes easy to us, even if these things are designed to interact with people. Remember the popular Aibo robot, Kibo, or just normal talking column. Something that tries to recreate the person, but does it incorrectly, causing a startled response as well as slightly detuned guitar, or rearranged the furniture in the house. This creation just doesn’t suit us.
You can completely abandon the idea of the uncanny valley. David Hanson and he is not a fan. He believes that great works of art often tried to recreate the people, but the ultimate goal of robotics, creating androids, will likely create robots that are closer to man than works of art.
In between Hanson and other scientists conduct experiments that either demonstrate overvaluation uncanny valley, or confirm its existence and highlight its boundaries.
The classic experiment involves a gradual transformation of the cartoon faces in the human between the robots because it is in motion most often is fear “ecolocalizer”. Hanson argues that the inclusion of the cartoonish features can help and that sinister valley will gradually disappear with the emergence of new generations who have grown up surrounded by bizarre robots. Although Hanson may not make the uncanny valley seriously, he’s trying to control it with each new iteration.
Hiroshi Ishiguro is one of the last of enthusiasts, lost in the valley head.
Based on the work of pioneers like Hanson, studying the interaction between people and robots are moving towards the boundaries of robotics, and make progress in the field of social Sciences. Usually, it is hard to repeat what you do not understand, and we still don’t understand how to interpret the constant flow of nonverbal information that flow through us as you interact with people in the flesh.
Ishiguro brings the imitation of the human form to the limit. It not only tracks and records the physical movement of people in the videos, but create their robots based on real people; series Repliee started with a “Replicant” of his daughter. Had to create a rubber replica of her body. Then he made Geminoid, a copy of himself.
As you age, he realized that it would be more effective to recreate a replica with the help of cosmetic surgery instead of having to re-sculpt your face every time with lots of wrinkles. “I decided not to grow old,” he says.
We love to throw in the air of abstract concepts and ideas: machines replace people, machines care work, sex with the machines, merge with machines. But consider any of these ideas in an open palm — and found a huge gap between expected and actual. We are still far from a world in which everyday interaction with robots is a chore, not academic research.
When we get used to the creepy androids?
Ilya Hel