Topic: HRP-4C

[Skadi]

I didn?t have a chance to flip through all the threads to see if someone already posted this here. If so, you can merge or delete.

Female robot heads for catwalk

Japanese scientists have unveiled a 'female' robot that is so realistic it is to appear in a Tokyo fashion show.

The robot, named HRP-4C, has 30 motors in its body that allow it to walk and move its arms, reports the BBC.
She also has eight motors on her face to create realistic 'human' expressions like anger and surprise.
HRP-4C is designed to look like a typical Japanese woman. She's 5ft 2ins tall, weighs 95 pounds and has chin-length black hair with bangs.
Unveiling the robot at Tsukuba City, north east of Tokyo, maker Hirohisa Hirukawa said she "had an ordinary figure".
At a demonstration, the robot waddled out, blinking and said, "Hello, everyone", in a tiny feminine voice as its mouth moved.
HRP-4C will go on sale for around ?142,000 after making her special catwalk appearance in Tokyo.
And its programming technology will be made public so other people can come up with fun moves for the robot, the scientists said.



Not a valid youtube URL

[smokester]

My 6 year old son did an article on this for his class newspaper last week, he teacher did one of these o_0

Oops that was the other one "Saya" he did his article on.

[knownassociate]

...wonders where the eventual plan for this leads....not sure... ...

[smokester]

Apparently fairly soon something like 25% of the Japanese will be over 60 which will have a great impact in the workplace.  The robot my son wrote about was used as a primary school teacher but the original article suggested that these kinds of robot could be used as receptionists and eventually, even front line medics perhaps.  Fascinating stuff as far as the engineering of the robots is concerned, but artificial intelligence is really an impossibility.

[knownassociate]

Apparently fairly soon something like 25% of the Japanese will be over 60 which will have a great impact in the workplace.  The robot my son wrote about was used as a primary school teacher but the original article suggested that these kinds of robot could be used as receptionists and eventually, even front line medics perhaps. 

Good directions to go. Not sure as it would change much in the teaching fields in my area as those positions seem to be filled by teachers with the emotions and sensitivity of a robot already.

artificial intelligence is really an impossibility.

That is a shame! That could be the only hope for some.

[dweez]

I don't think AI is an impossibility...I just think we are nowhere close to creating it right now.  The human brain is the greatest computer in existence today.  It's just all those feeling and emotions that mess up the computations.

First rule of programming (and AI is just a computer program that, originally written by a human, has evolved into writing for itself): Garbage in, garbage out.

[smokester]

The BBC's beloved Horizon programme ran an issue on robots and A.I recently, The Box probably still has it if you are interested.  One of the things it featured that stuck in my mind was when an expert asked the presenter to look out the window and tell him what he saw.  You can do it now and run through the things you see.  The expert went on to explain that there is no way a computer could look out the same window and recognise things in the view, let alone compute what was going on with them.  Even if they could any movement in the scene would probably scupper it anyhow.  It was then you realise that the things we do even subconsciously, are millennia away from what an artificial intelligence could achieve.  You seriously have more chance at matter transportation.

[knownassociate]

As I was walking with my young hooligan, this am to the bus stop, he was looking at the sky. He then pointed at the horizon and said that was the first time he had noticed the curve. It had always appeared flat before.

[dweez]

It's kind of like games like Zork.

You are in a room

"Look"

You look.  You see nothing

"Look around"

You look around.  You see nothing

"Hit the lights"

You don't know how to hit the lights

"Turn on the lights"

You turn on the lights.

"Look"

"You see a room with 2 windows, one door, a bed, and a desk"

Emotions, feelings, intuition, etc. can not be programmed (at least at this point) and so any so called "AI" will be limited by this constraint and not be able to truly "think".

For the nostalgic:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/infocom/zork1.html

[knownassociate]

Some of the results of the testing done with LSD aptly demonstrated that there was less known about the brain than was previously believed. I wish I had hung onto that. It was pretty interesting. But my point is given that there is so much that is not know about the functions of the brain, wouldn't it be rather difficult to create an A.I.?

[dweez]

I definitely agree with you ka.  I feel we'll eventually get there, but I mean like decades and decades (I'd say centuries but my limited existence here on this mortal coil tends to try and keep things in my own time frame) down the line, barring any stellar advancements in technology (for instance, quantum computing or such).

[smokester]

As you obviously know dweez, Moore's law was correct in predicting that computing power would stall and it will take a whole new approach for it to start to accelerate again.

This is the program I was talking about and unfortunately it is not available on iPlayer, however, it can be found on TPB.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00g4ypg

[hmed2390]

A.I is pretty much out there, and I don't believe we are anywhere near to creating it in a "robotic" sense. As a side note, we don't even completely understand the mechanisms of the human mind, to think about simulating such on an algorithmic scale seems a bit unreaslistic in this given time period.That's not to say that it cannot be accomplished, but to my beliefs, not any time soon. Just as Smokes mentioned Moore's law, I will mention the Turing Test. Now unless the user is a monkey, I don't think any A.I is going to pass the test yet. 

Neat article Skadi. 

[davidsolomon83]

...wonders where the eventual plan for this leads....not sure... ...

^  ..........i dig ! BAD BOY 

====================================================================
the computational ability of the human brain maybe far more powerful than previously imagined. Experiments have shown that in effect a single neuron is capable of independent thought !! thats startling, plus the ability of a computational device to parallel the ability of the human brain which has more than 100 billion neurons can be achieved only at quantum levels, which means that an advanced quantum computer can in theory equal a human brain, luckily that horizon has been reached but its just the beginning.
 For a computer to behave or have thoughts/emotions/true intelligence, it must be adaptable not inflexible nor based on a binary line of thought, the answer to that is the neural nets. I did some articles on this. Currently, the best we have developed is equivalent to a child of 4 years. Maybe, soon, some would say in another 60-70 years, we will have a true Artificial Intelligence.
====================================================================
BUT NOT IF WE CONTINUE TO ELECT PRESIDENTS WHO SAY:
IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING?