Heart Robot takes cue from 'Wall-E'
Is "emotional robot" an oxymoron? Not necessarily, say the creators of the Heart Robot.
This robot/puppet, which is made of soft, flexible plastic, appears to breathe, blink, flinch, and clench its fists in response to human encounters. Experts in the diverse fields of robotics, animatronics, street theater, puppetry, and Web design converged to design the bot, which is meant to evoke emotion in those who meet it.
Swathed in white Egyptian cotton, it looks like a slightly forlorn cousin of ET. Its nervous system is made up of five small computers that work together to produce reactions. Motors move its eyelids and hands and make its little red, rubber heart beat--more slowly if you cuddle it, and faster if you shake it, yell at it, or otherwise stress the poor little guy out.
David McGoran
(Credit: UWE)Sensors allow the bot to detect other objects. Two air pumps in its legs drive its breathing system, which, like the heart, responds to the robot's level of "worry" or "relaxation" by speeding up or slowing down accordingly.
The bot's creators want people to understand that robots don't have to be metallic, distant, or controlling, but can actually evoke real feelings. (Just consider the popularity and emotional punch of this summer's Pixar flick Wall-E, with its winsome title character and Wall-E's robo-love interest, Eva.) The team expects robots of the future to increasingly use the language of emotion to communicate and want to know how that will impact human behavior.
Heart "has large deep soulful eyes, delicate ears, hands, and feet and is warm to touch," said David McGoran, a project coordinator at the University of the West of England, which oversaw the construction of the robot. "We are hoping that people will feel an emotion in response to the robot and that this will inspire them to find out more about robotics." McGoran is also is the puppeteer who brings Heart Robot to life in public.
Heart Robot, which has been created in versions ranging from about 2 feet tall to about 3 feet tall, has made its way out of the lab, appearing at street festivals and science fairs around England over the last few months. Currently, it's starring in the interactive Emotibots event at London's Science Museum, which runs through Thursday. If you happen to be in the London area, you might want to stop by and give it some love.
Leslie Katz, senior editor of CNET's Crave, covers gadgets, games, and most other digital distractions. As a co-host of the CNET News Daily Podcast, she sometimes tries to channel Terry Gross. E-mail Leslie. 
and frost7331, get a life you pervert
Frankly I'm a bit sick of the 'news' that a responsive robot can invoke human emotional response. Completely inanimate plush dolls can do it if they're cute enough. Humans fill in the blanks with their own imagination. With a stuffed animal you just have to use more imagination than you would for a Heart or a Pleo, but somewhere in the back of your mind you still know that it's not alive or really feeling anything. You can push buttons to make a robot or a computer do things; in this case the computer is appealing to the visual and tactile senses, and the input you give comes from your voice and hands instead of a single button.
Wake me up when robots can actually be shown to have emotions at least as complex as those of simple animals.
sometimes this type of thing reminds me of the animated film the Animatrix, and the part im talking about is the Second Renaissance. im not saying that it will be true, but what it is, is the IF factor. what if robots come to the gluttony of humans and humans would do nothing for a time being, living off of them, and the robots working. some people getting angry that they took their jobs. anywho thats out of the subject.
my point is that if people are not accepting something like this and people will still react in a way of disgust or such, maybe its a better idea of not making something like this in a full implement, becuase something bad might happen.
as for filling those gaps with something robotic, my neighbor loves her dog. its one of those terrier dogs that cost her husband 3,000 dollars. i mean no doubt who wouldnt love their dog, but she treats her dog in a weird way like if it was her own son. plainly the dog is retarded, no education whatsoever. cmon the dog even barks at my birds for 5 freakin min. for no reason. and, like some of us know, that we should walk the dog daily. she doesnt even do it at all. well she is lazy lol
you see those are the people that might need this type of thing. the people that would feel lonely. somebody that needs some sort of affection to give to somebody else. that woman that i just told you about, she doesnt want any kids. thats y she got the dog. personally i dont like it, after all it bites me.... but some people it would be a benefit. and maybe give your children a sense of how to take care of a child like the way my science class taught me with a bag of flour lol.
it is true though that its best to have a child and family. i want a family myself when the time comes. but its things like this where people don't understand what feelings are. is it the way we show it? we give it? or the way we recieve it? how does a dog know what you are doing to them? does the pet know what you are saying? no but it does know what you are trying to tell them and what you are trying to do when you are educating it.
like i said, maybe it is best if people should not undergo these types of things. and maybe we should just leave it be with a OS and a good ol keyboard with a mouse and a moniter. and we should use those things for the better things like educate children.
i dont believe that its used to replace something or some1, unless that person wants to, but maybe its for something else that you should really really think deeply about. and maybe treat others like you would treat urself
If you think about it, a machine with a bunch of 1s and 0s isn't necessarily all that different than humans. We are "programmed" by biology, genetics and our past experiences to react to situations in certain ways. In a very real sense, forces outside our control (genetics) do "program" us to be who we are, just as an outside force (a human or group of humans) programs a robot like this.
but its overall the thing that bothers some people is what they want and how they want it only for themselves and how human perception is at the utmost and yet we are. maybe its how robots are just replacing some things.
a good example is how in walmart or in home depot they have the self served checkout. personally i like those but people think they are being replaced and think they get fired . i mean some do, but just how people need robots, robots need us. its a sort of chain that people dont see, and only see the tool as something to use, instead of thinking that its so much more than that. something that could be living inside.
something like Steven Spielberg's AI! lol
- by factoryphil August 7, 2008 5:41 PM PDT
- oh great. wasn't this prophesized in The Terminator? for now it has a little beating heart...in a few years it has a 45 longslide with lazer sighting and it's hunting down Sarah Connor. but it's all good - as long as tax dollars aren't paying for this stuff!!!
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