One of the world’s leading humanoid roboticist has unveiled a new android which is modeled on a 10-year-old boy, although no-one specific. (See video below.)
Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, Wakayama University, Japan, has previously made a robot called Geminoid that looked exactly like himself and another modeled on a young woman, which he called Erica.
The new robot, called Ibuki, and the IEEE has given us all permission to panic over it.
While some would say it’s a technical achievement, others would say it’s downright creepy.
Ibuki gets around on wheels but “can fake walking”, meaning it looks like it’s walking if you view the top half.
What its application might be is uncertain, but this is more of a research robot rather than a commercial one.
But according to a story on TechWorld.com, Professor Ishiguro “wants a humanoid future” when humans and androids live together.
“The more human we make robots, the more we will accept them in our daily lives,” he said.