How Robots Saved an Artist's Sanity 26
New submitter lebijoutier writes "According to Slate, '[Patrick] Tresset, for one, discovered a novel way to stay mentally healthy with the help of drugs and still pursue what was once his life's work: He created robots that can draw portraits. Far from a mere novelty, his research is telling us more about both the creative process in humans and how we relate emotionally to machines. ... Most of us still don't have robots in the home, but for decades now, we've been waiting for machines to do our bidding. Tresset believes that it might be a good idea to imbue all personal robots with some sort of artistic skill to encourage an emotional bond — it might allow for more trust, perhaps, though you can also see how overly identifying with a machine might create some existential questions.' The article also has a fascinating video of five of his robots sketching a single human."
doesn't compute (Score:4, Insightful)
Tresset believes that it might be a good idea to imbue all personal robots with some sort of artistic skill to encourage an emotional bond
That seems like putting the cart before the horse. How about creating a robot with voice capabilities that are similar to natural speech? Or something that doesn't look and act like the killer cowboy from "Westworld"?
Any machine that can simulate possessing an emotional core creates sympathy/empathy. However, a Dreadnought [google.com] a la Iron Man baking me a cake or doing water color is still a freaking Dreadnought.