By now you may have already seen the news articles about CB2 the Japanese robot that was developed to mimic a child's movements between ages 1 and 3. The machine has 56 actuators that replace muscles and allow it to move in an immature yet human like fashion. While I have never worked in robotics, I've studied artificial intelligence and have developed Internet based chat robots which are often represented by avatars. One thing that I have noticed in my work, is that the more human looking the avatar the creepier it looks, and it's usually because of the eyes! Animated, cartoon like characters always seem to be more accepted than the photo-realistic ones. While CB2 was developed for the purpose of studying the movements of a child, I'm not sure why the researchers felt the need to give it such human like appearance. I love robotics and am considering a Roomba, though I think I'll wait until the new year when iRobot is said to be launching 3 new devices, I just hope they don't make the things look too human like! It's just unnatural looking no matter how hard they try, besides I want to know who is man and who is machine...
