Ishiguro, a senior researcher at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories outside Kyoto, has created a machine in his own image -- a robot that looks and moves exactly like him. It sits on a chair and gazes around the room in a very humanlike fashion, just like its creator. In fact, the robot is an exact duplicate.
It blinks and fidgets in its seat, moving its foot up and down restlessly, its shoulders rising gently as though it were breathing. These micromovements are so convincing that it's hard to believe this is a machine -- it seems more like a man wearing a rubber mask. But a living, breathing man.
But "Geminoid HI-1," as the robot is called, has another trick up its sleeve.
"Everyone, thank you so much for coming today," it says in polite but languid Japanese at an ATR demo Thursday, its lips moving to the sound. The voice is Ishiguro's, broadcast through a speaker inside his android double.
Geminoid can be operated remotely so the robot reproduces the voice, posture and lip movements of Ishiguro, who wears a motion-capture system. A mouseclick raises a hand or finger.
Ishiguro, whose job is teaching at Osaka University, an hour's drive away, designed Geminoid so he could "robot in" to his classes and skip the commute.
Geminoid already has a palpable gravitas that comes across when chatting to Ishiguro through the android, and one hesitates to even poke the machine's rubbery hands and cheeks.
Ishiguro's droid-making expertise derives in part from his collaboration with Tokyo robotics and entertainment firm Kokoro, whose "Actroid" android receptionists interacted with visitors to Japan's 2005 Aichi Expo in four languages. The partnership produced Repliee Q1expo, a sophisticated female android that was built by "copying" an actual TV newscaster. Like Geminoid, Repliee could fool onlookers and be mistaken for a real person.
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."
The research might lead to better humanoid robots, or possibly even open up a market of remote androids for hire -- rent a robot in Paris or Pago Pago, have real-world interaction with friends through it, and never leave home. Ishiguro, naturally, has already thought of this: "If I could have one at the university, and one at ATR, I would just do all my work from a hot-springs resort," he laughs.
NOTE: In a previous topic, I mentioned about robots getting more and more humanlike. It has already begun. By the year 2030 AD, expect to have a robotic maid in your household.