So the AI can fool a lot of people … in the sense that it can pass for human often enough? 😊

Something like that. For specific purposes we don’t need AGI                                            

OK, so the robot can react appropriately when it knows enough of the topic

Right, so as a receptionist at a hotel a robot doesn’t need to know everything, we can predict most of the questions that come up

When is breakfast, where is my room, can you order a taxi, etc.

Exactly! So a robot that can move convincingly, speak convincingly, and then look really human  

“look really human”, con you specify that? 🤗

Smile, nod, move their eyes around, gesticulate, have non-plasticky skin, no gaps, hinges, wires, etc.

That’s a daunting list of do’s and don’ts, and I guess there is a lot more 🧐

Yep. But if we can do that, we can climb out of uncanny valley                             

So how do we do that? 🤔

Well, we did manage to tackle a large part of speech recognition and production …             

… sure, fair enough, Siri and Alexa do work pretty well 😊

And we did that mostly by just studying humans and copying them 😊

Right, to pass the Turing test, imitate a human, fool the judge

Correct. So now we need to do the same thing with the rest, both body and behavior            

That would be a huge deal! 😁

Absolutely. And this is really necessary for empathy.                              

Tell me more!  😁                                                                          

I’ve read the post and I get why you came to me                                 

Good! 😄

This is exactly the issue I would like to address, because it would make so many tasks easier                                              

Tasks, like …? 🤔

Let me start at the beginning! 😊

Humans have toyed with the idea of artificial humans as helpers since forever  

OK  👌🏻

Finally we are really getting there, it’s not a myth or science fiction anymore                                         

Fair enough, I’ve seen some pretty radical things coming from Japan lately

Indeed, and we can now build machines that can move almost like an animal or a human 🦾 🐕

Oh, like the robots from Boston Dynamics! I saw them dancing, that was so cool! 😁

Weird, but cool!

“Weird” is the feeling a lot of people have, but robots can also be cute, like Wall-E or Pepper 😁                                  

That’s right, even when they are not humanoid at all, we can still relate to them

But when they look like a human, we dip into uncanny valley really fast                 

So what is your take on this? 🤔

We need a robot that can move like human, fluidly, harmoniously …

and we’re getting there, right?

Right, but also speak like a human, fluidly, harmoniously …              

… harmoniously …?

I mean, in a way that fits naturally in a dialog                                      

that seems pretty hard … wouldn’t that presuppose AGI?

Maybe we don’t need that if it can fool a lot of people a lot of the time …

Hi Sam! I came across an interesting blogpost on robots and empathy …

Hi Manuel! So now you want to chat about robots? 😅😅         

Yep! 😁

 .. Be my guest!                                                                                 

So this blog was all about Uncanny Valley and how we relate to robots 🤖

Yeah, uncanny valley really is a problem 🤔...   we really want to make robots that people can relate to, but it’s hard!

Seems like it makes more sense not to try …?

How do you mean?  🤔 🤔                                                               

Well, you’re the expert, but I seem to understand that it is easier to make a friendly, relatable robot that doesn’t look like a human at all

Ah, ok, yes, in a sense, yes …                                                         

… but …? 😏

For some tasks a human form makes no sense at all, e.g. industrial robots 🤖

Right 👍

But in most places where humans and robots work together, everything is built for humans

Ooh, that is a problem!

So we need robots that can interact with stuff made for humans.

Mmh, I see, so body and limbs etc. need to be human shaped

In many cases that’s exactly what you need, but there are lots of reasons why a human shape makes sense!