We’ve come a long way from dire predictions of AI taking over the human race and futuristic renderings of robots that look like CP3O has a baby with Rosie (the Jetsons’ robot maid).
Engineers crafted silicon skin that mimicked the texture of human skin; They are perfecting the subtleties of expression. They’ve even built autonomous interlocutors capable of learning and storing information based on their interactions with humans and other robots.
No, robots and AI haven’t taken over the world yet, but their brains are in our technology, and robot models can be so lifelike it’s frightening. Here’s a lifelike robot that will blow your mind.
Diego-san is a one-year-old robot baby developed by UC San Diego, Kokoro, and Hanson Robotics in 2013. Its baby purpose is to help researchers study cognitive development. You could put clothes and a wig on it, and that would do just fine to cover up its pneumatic actuators.
The problem is that it has an oddly large head. The head stores all the hardware to run instructions and the 27 servo-motors that control Diego-san’s facial expressions. It can also interact with humans the way a one-year-old would.
