Erica Robot Holds Conversation

Recently, this never seen before in this context robot made an appearance in front of an audience in Madrid sporting a brown bob haircut and an uncanny likeness to a real person. Obviously, this is huge news for the robotics world as these types of advancements are often prioritized when it comes to trying to integrate robotics into everyday life. Ones like Erica robot are commonly used to try and eliminate potential fears people may have.

Erica Robot Roleplays

Erica, the robots chosen name, was roleplaying as an employer going back and forth with the hopeful employee, played by the man. “You mentioned project management. Can you please tell me more?” she asked. Unsurprisingly it has been stated that Erica robot is not aware of what the conversations she holds are actually about, she simply looks for keywords and phrases and responds to them in due course. Engineers at the conference stated, quite ominously, that despite all of the fears of robots becoming closer and closer to fully replacing humans in a variety of situations, they would nevertheless slowly become more and more integrated into our lives.

Hiroko Kamide, Japanese psychologist who specializes in human and robot interactions said: “Robots will coexist with humans sooner or later.” He and many others pointed towards making mannerisms and movements more realistic and creating a more authentic feel for the robots when on the topic of how to help humans to easily accept them as a part of a new era. The key to making the transition into a robotic world is to not only have these robots be capable of performing new tasks and jobs but to also be capable of interacting and talking to humans at the same time while also not being at all dangerous to them.

Improving Robots

These robots are constantly being improved all over the world by companies such as Boston Dynamics, and it looks as if most companies, especially in the west, are looking at much more humanoid style robots. Many have accused robots such as Boston Dynamics Atlas of being set to perform in a war setting, and these people may have a point as these robots at the end of the day are practically guaranteed to be exploited in a hostile way. With capabilities, no human soldier could ever possess its practically inevitable.

No matter how realistic these bots become the research of Japanese researcher Masahiro Mori in the 1970’s suggests that how we react well to robots looking familiar to us but become uncomfortable if they begin to look too similar to us, with his theory also stating our brains have an amazing ability to always recognize when something’s not quite human. This is likely why many companies, especially in Japan, have chosen to make their robots more cartoonish or animal-like as to try and steer away from making people even more fearful.