(WS News) – The robot’s skin, which gives a real human feel, is claimed to be made from silicone.
Have you ever wondered if you can be duplicated in a robotic version with an almost identical face, hair, and similar appearance?
Well, a Japanese inventor has actually done this. In the past 18 years, Hiroshi Ishiguro has created six robot clones of himself.
Recently, he developed Geminoid HI-6, which has a similar physical appearance to Ishiguro. Interestingly, the robot easily duplicates Ishiguro’s facial expressions.
His life-like teleoperated android version is currently being displayed at Osaka University.
The robotic clone gives lectures and also fields questions from students.
Ishiguro claimed that the robot is integrated with a large language model, and ten of his books. Almost all of his media interviews were also integrated into the robot.
“The main feature of this version is it’s conversational. Originally, I was using this robot for giving lectures when I was busy. But now, after the lectures, this Geminoid HI-6 can answer the questions given by an audience,” said Ishiguro.
The robot’s skin, which gives a real human feel, is claimed to be made from silicone.
However, the robot doesn’t have the capacity to walk, although a biped mechanism is expected in the near future.
The robot’s voice also isn’t exactly a carbon copy, sounding more like a generic male adult with an unusual — and definitely not Ishiguro’s — accent.
Nonetheless, making the robot appear as life-like as possible is Ishiguro’s main task, because he and his colleagues are pursuing a future where interacting with a humanoid robot becomes commonplace. Ishiguro showed off a front desk android receptionist called “Erica,” which can be remotely controlled or interact with visitors autonomously, reported Futurism.
Ishiguro told CNBC that if we expect to have better relationships with a robot, it’s quite important to feel intimacy to the robot, to accept the robot as our social member.
The robot has a total of 53 degrees of freedom, and can reproduce various human behaviors, mainly upper body movements and facial expressions.
The robot can answer the questions of what exactly human presence is, whether human presence can be transmitted to remote locations, and whether androids can surpass humans through experimentation.
With the height of 50cm and the width of 25cm, the robot has 16 pneumatic actuators and external power controlling supply. The robot has plastic head and metal skeleton, according to Ishiguro’s lab.
The inventor uses Geminoids for research toward understanding humans. Their goal is to apply methods from engineering, cognitive science, and neuroscience to investigate various research topics.
