Androids
Bloomberg recently traveled to Osaka University to see Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro’s latest creation, an android named Erica that's designed to work, one day, as a receptionist or personal assistant.
The latest android created by Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, has lifelike skin and facial gestures and uses artificial intelligence software to listen to and respond to requests. Check out the video from Bloomberg below.
Is Erica creepy? To Vance she is, but not to Ishiguro, who considers her nearly indistinguishable from a human.
Ishiguro a professor at Osaka University’s Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, famously known as the the man who "made a copy of himself" as an android, and his team claim that Erica can also recognize the speech patterns and non-verbal cues of the person it's speaking with.
"Without intention and desire, the android cannot be emotional," says Ishiguro.
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"We are developing total technology to enable Erica to have natural interaction with persons by integrating various technologies such as voice recognition, human tracking, and natural motion generation," states the research project's website.By giving the android, which was first previewed to the public last year, improved speech and communication body language, further erasing the "uncanny valley" effect of speaking to a robot.
Although she is unable to walk independently, Erica's non-verbal actions, including blinks, emotive facial movements and head leaning, all seemed to enhance the android's Japanese-style communication.
