ATR Visit (Part 1) - Geminoid

Thanks to Dr. Yasuo Hirata and Ms. Yuko Ishida, I had a chance to visit  ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International) - one of the centers of robotics research in Japan - with a group of high-tech industry executives.

And I got to see the Geminoid in person for the first time. He was taking a break though, which made an interesting picture, because all of the other videos/photos you can find on the web are of the robot in action.

The Geminoid was developed by a group of researchers led by Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University who is also a visiting group leader at the Intelligent Robotics and Communication Lab (IRC) at ATR. The Geminoid defined by Dr. Ishiguro is an android that looks almost exactly like an actual person and which can be connected to that actual person through a network. This certain Geminoid is that of Dr. Ishiguro himself.

We didn't get to see Dr. Ishiguro during this visit, but Dr. Norihiro Hagita who is director of IRC explained to us why his lab focuses on humanoid/android research. (Dr. Hagita is photographed below with the Geminoid.)

"Unlike PCs and keyboards, humanoids have the ultimate human interface. Humans know how to interact with humans, thus humans will know how to interact with humanoids. You don't need manuals" says Dr. Hagita. Humanoids will make an "ideal information medium for people." He calls humanoids "existence media" meaning that unlike PCs and newspapers, robots have "presence."

On the way to ATR, I finished reading Dr. Ishiguro's book "Android Science" (which unfortunately is only in Japanese at this point) and found it extremely interesting. He describes in his book that the reason he does android research is because he wants to learn  "what makes humans human." Robots and electronics are replacing human tasks in various forms and will continue to do so. What robots will ultimately NOT be able to do will be the answer to his question.  He believes that "to understand what makes us humans, is the meaning of human existence."

One of the other interesting points he makes is that although there are many companies and projects that focus on developing humanoids that will help people in and around the home with physical tasks, he doesn't think that is a good idea. "Will humans want to see robots that look like themselves to perform tasks that they would rather not?" He rather sees the future of humanoids/androids as an information media that interacts with and provides information to humans.

You can see the Geminoid in action here.

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[JASMIN]

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