ACM TechNews

Robo-Relationships Are Virtually Assured: British Experts

Agence France Presse (07/30/08)

Creating robots capable of recognizing and responding to basic human emotions is a logical step as people's lives become increasingly dependent on technology, say British roboticists David McGoran and Matt Denton. "People know about artificial intelligence but the perception is that robots are cold and calculating industrial automatons," McGoran says. "But over the last decade, there has been a new field where robots have become the opposite of that." McGoran has created the Heart Robot, named because its "heart" is visible on the left side of its body. The robot is programmed to react to sound, touch, and nearby movements, with its heart beating at different rates. Denton has developed the iC Hexapod, a six-legged robot with a miniature camera that can move the camera in response to nearby movements. Both the Heart Robot and the iC Hexapod are "emotibots," or robots programmed to react to human emotions. McGoran says people respond to robots that mimic the emotions of humans. Denton agrees, and adds that greater interaction with robots is inevitable. He says people will form emotional bonds with their robots in the same way some people care about their cars.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j75-MEnc0b8nKrwZ-hschg1ZJ3mg

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