What will robots look like in the future? Will they retain obvious signs of their artificial nature, or will they seamlessly blend in with people to such an extent that we might have difficulty telling them apart from living, breathing humans?
If Nadine – a new social and 'emotionally intelligent' robot from scientists in Singapore – is a sign of things to come, realistic-looking humanoid machines might just have the edge over their obviously artificial counterparts. How come? Because the physical resemblance to ordinary people could help us interact with a machine in a more natural way, whether at home, at work, or even if it were to look after us when we get old.
"Over the past four years, our team at [Nanyang Technological University] have been fostering cross-disciplinary research in social robotics technologies,"
said Nadia Thalmann, "to transform a virtual human, from within a computer, into a physical being that is able to observe and interact with other humans."
By employing linguistics and psychology in addition to conventional robotics fields such as engineering and computer science, the researchers have sought to blur the distinction between human and machine. Nadine – which is designed to look like a physical doppelgänger of a younger Thalmann – isn't exactly meant to fool us into thinking it's a real woman, but it's supposed to help us relate to 'her' as if the robot were any other ordinary person.
"This is somewhat like a real companion that is always with you and conscious of what is happening,"
said Thalmann. "So in future, these socially intelligent robots could be like C–3PO… with knowledge of language and etiquette."
