Team Aims To Build Robot Toddler In Nine Months 114
Zothecula writes "If robots are going to be part of our everyday lives, they'll need to fit into our homes rather than the factory floor. Few people would be comfortable living with a metal spider on tank treads, so the University of Zurich's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is building a robot toddler called 'Roboy.' Using 'soft robotics' technology that mimics the human body, the 1.2 meter (3 ft, 11 in) tall humanoid robot is part of an effort to make robots that people are more comfortable with in day-to-day situations."
Robot invaders (Score:5, Insightful)
Making robots that look like humans do not make people more comfortable... It freaks them out.
More what? (Score:5, Insightful)
In what way excactly do we need to become MORE comfortable with machines than we are now?
Has driving a car, warming food in a microwave, and allowing a roomba to vacuume my floors not enough? None of these make me uncomfortable, despite their lack of human interface. Why should other forms of purpose built machines, or even general purpose, suddenly need to be humanoid?
Don't get me wrong, its cool research, and it could yield some interesting results but... as something required to make us more comfortable with machines? Nah, not unless you mean having sex with machines or something.... even that we already have people quite comfortable with some rather non-human form mimicing products.
Uncanny Valley (Score:2, Insightful)
If the point is to make people more comfortable, I think they may have forgotten the uncanny valley effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
Honestly.. would you rather have a robot that looks like a robot, or a robot that looks like a CREEPY pseudo-child?
4 foot tall toddler? (Score:4, Insightful)
that's scary in and of itself
Re:9 Months? No way. (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget the robot diapers! That oil discharge has to go somewhere.
They should take a cue from film animators (Score:4, Insightful)
make it like Wall-E. with expressive hands.