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GabriellePickard view more articlesInstead, such humanoid creations that have the ability to sense the moods of humans were on display at the recent World Robot Exhibition in Beijing. Naturally, the mood-sensing robots took center stage.
The display, which was part of the three-day World Robot Exhibition, was viewed by 100 experts from 12 international organizations and over 120 companies in the field of robotics attend.
The mood-sensing robot is called Xiaoluo and is designed by the Chinese company Tami Intelligence. Xiaoluo is already a fairly famous robot, having hosted galas on television and being regularly seen interacting with humans.
Talking to IB Times, Liu Boyi, Tami Intelligence’s product manager spoke of the incredibly human-like capabilities of Xiaoluo.
It has plenty of facial expressions, and the screen installed in its eyes can give people a good feeling of interaction. And it can follow the human body, which means it can imitate your gestures when you are in front of it. Most importantly, it can recognise if you are a man or a woman, and tell your age and whether you are happy, and the degree of your happiness. It knows all of them,” said Liu Boyi (1).
Human Acting Robots
While the World Robot Exhibition was the first time China has hosted such an event, it is no secret that China is keen to be at the forefront of the robotics industry.
In the wake of the exhibition, China’s President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang sent letters of congratulations to conference’s opening, which took place on November 23, 2015.
As the IB Times reports, China’s five-year economic plan includes the development of the robotics sector. The plan includes aiming to produce four to five ‘champion’ robotic companies to reach an annual production target of approximately 13,000 robots.
During the next five-year economic agenda, from 2016 to 2020, innovation within China’s robotic industry is, according to IB Times, again lifted to a “crucial level.”
Though China isn’t the only nation keen to utilize on the innovation merits of creating robots that unnervingly resonate human behavior.
The CIA and Robots
As Top Secret Writer’s reported earlier this year, in January 2015, DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) revealed a funded project at the 29th meeting of the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. DARPA is funding a research project being carried out by a scientific team from the University of Maryland to advance robots’ “ability to sense visual information and turn it into action” (2).
This is being achieved by having the robots view videos of various human tasks.
The CIA is also keen to exploit unique capabilities of robots to assist the agency in complex missions. In May 2015, Top Secret Writers wrote about ‘Robotic espionage’ and how the CIA “wants to design robotic systems with complex and sophisticated manoeuvre technologies” in order to undergo tasks such as gathering information from enemy states, outsmart enemy counterintelligence assets, protect sensitive information and much, much more (3).
Though we have to admit, by creating robots that can detect whether we’re feeling happy, and our degree of happiness, it’s China that seems to currently have the upper hand on the race to be crowned champion inventors of mortal-like, mechanical creations.
References & Image Credits:
(1) IB Times
(2) TSW: DARPA Training Robots YouTube
(3) TSW: CIA Is Looking to Deploy Robots in Complex Missions
