CHALLENGES AHEAD
Key challenges lie in improving and even perfecting interpersonal and social relationships
between androids and humans. While
Ishiguro and his colleagues have
arguably created the world's most
human-looking androids, their behaviors, facial gestures, and other body
movements still need improvement.
Ishiguro also is attempting to better
understand the human brain and apply
cognitive science to his robots' programmed behaviors. For example, if two
young women are walking next to each
other and chatting, we assume they're
probably friends. If two people are holding hands, we assume they're in some
kind of close relationship.
Yet what is the android to conclude if
a short mother and her tall son are walking together and holding hands? As
humans, we would likely be able to surmise the relationship. But for androids,
this task could be challenging.
Also, for instance, clearing our throats
in a certain way may indicate discomfort
or the need for attention. How is an
android to determine when we are simply clearing our throats and when there
may be some other meaning?
While there are social and moral implications to consider, Ishiguro and his colleagues first need to tackle some practical
issues. For example, robots need to differentiate between individuals in large
crowds of people. In one test, individual
children in a large group received their
own RFID tags, and the android had no
problems identifying them.
Perhaps the most interesting challenge
is a phenomenon known as the Uncanny
Valley, theorized by Masahiro Mori in
1970. As an android's appearance and
motion become more human, a human's
emotional response to it becomes more
positive. But this positive emotional
response only increases to a point where
the appearance and motions are almost
too perfect and become eerie.
Then, human beings become strongly
repulsed by the nearly human android.
The positive response only returns when
androids and humans are indistinguishable. At that point, human beings may
empathize with androids as if they also
were human.
Humans may be repulsed if the rate at
which an android can blink its eyelids is
too fast or too slow, or if it isn't smooth.
Yet if the blinking pattern matches
that of an average human, we would
empathize with the android. Not surprisingly, children are the first to pick
up on and be repulsed by non-humanlike motions and appearances.
Just last year, Ishiguro's android's were
still in the Uncanny Valley, but recent
progress has changed that. "Now, with
the correct number of actuators, the
android has come out of the Uncanny
Valley. The movements still need
improvements, but the current generation is much improved," Ishiguro says.
"The young infants are now not
afraid. We are still very far from replicating the exact movement of humans, and
there is no way to have a perfect copy of
humans within 50 years. However, with
very short interactions of a minute or
two, most would not know they are
interacting with an android."
According to Ishiguro, human-like
movement is the most important characteristic. Androids must also be able to
understand answers and surmise information based on conversations. And,
there's a need to research androids in
real-life situations. For instance, take an android to a shopping mall and
observe its behavior. Then it's back to
the lab to make improvements and continue the cycle.
To better understand human behaviors
and apply cognitive science, Ishiguro's
team is about 50% psychologists and
50% engineers of varying fields. To
improve social behaviors, the psychologists are working closely with the engineers to create algorithms that attempt to
mimic the cognitive aspects.
"We are interested in making a
human robot so we better understand
humans," says Ishiguro. "In our search,
we ask ourselves what it means to be
human. This is the psychological aspect
of android research. Yet there are obviously several hard sciences involved in
robotics as well. So it is a great combination to learn about both humans and
engineering."
MAKING ANDROIDS HUMANOID
Now take ASIMO's underlying technologies and apply human-looking skin
made of silicon with integrated piezoelectric touch sensors and plenty of actuators
for controlling facial features. You'd get
Hiroshi Ishiguro's Androids. Ishiguro
and his fellow researchers at Osaka University want to create androids that, at
first glance, are indistinguishable from
the humans they resemble ().
"The android is [a] communication
tool. In Japan, we have a serious problem: too many old people without
enough young people to entertain them.
Many elderly can walk themselves, so
assistance with a mechanical system can
be provided with communication support. Physical support can also be provided," says Ishiguro.
"And, androids are excellent for general-purpose use with children. Androids
can also provide entertainment in the
form of tour guides and can be used as
receptionists to explain a company and
greet people as they entered the building.
Androids would make good companions, and this is the most important market for the android technologies."
To see ASIMO in action, go to engineeringtv.com and click on "Episode 4:
ASIMO at the Consumer Electronics
Show." For more technical information,
see "Attack Of The Humanoid Robots".