Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote a piece discussing the work of Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro. From his lab outside Kyoto, the professor was working on lifelike replicants designed, among other things, to help his research into human behavior. In that piece I included this photo of the good professor and his latest creation; aware that he's not the most, um, charismatic of photographic subjects, I pointed out that "the dude with glasses is NOT the robot":
Ah, but that was then. Our man in Kyoto has cashed in some more nice grants, and recently demonstrated his latest project: himself! In other words, the dude with the glasses now could very well be the robot:
He has named his creation "Geminoid", a label both properly scientific-sounding and chillingly non-human, which will make it just that much easier for robot conquerors to use them to infiltrate society. I would've gone with homo sapiens simulacra, but Geminoid works too I guess.
Professor Ishiguro continues to explore the fundamentals of human interaction with his synthetic double:
But why bother to build robots that look like humans? Ishiguro views machines as good vehicles to learn more about human nature. He combines engineering with cognitive science with the aim of making very humanlike robots, which can be used as test beds for theories about human perception, communication and cognition. He calls his approach "android science."
"A robot is a kind of simulator for expressing human functions, especially the cerebellum or the muscles," says Norihiro Hagita, director of the ATR lab that developed Geminoid. "It's a kind of ultimate human interface."
Ok, super. It's a test bed for exploring the interaction of the blah with the semiotics of which and the effect of huh and the wazzit. But Geminoid research also has more immediate, real-world applications more familiar to the rest of us: he uses it to go to meetings or class in his stead (which may explain why the thing looks irritated) and surely it is just a matter of time before it can make decisions and actually do your job for you. And I'm certain that baser applications will yet prevail, however advanced the design may be or lofty the goal.
Entrepreneurs, banking on the depravity of humankind, might have changed the above quotes thus: "Why bother to build robots that look like humans?" " To fuck 'em, of course!" Oh wait- they already do.
[wik] Minister GeekLethal inexplicably failed to point out the the confluence of these two stories leads to the inevitable conclusion that Professor Ishiguro can, in fact, go fuck himself. [- Minister B.]
[alsø wik] Minister GeekLethal inexplicably included the phrase "Entrepreneurs, banking on the depravity of humankind..." written in a tone indicating that he might have been expecting something else. [- Minister P.]
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