PartI is HERE

“No one would examine whether you are a real person. Human beings’ behavior are after all built on the trust by people”

Professor Hiroshi’s passion toward robots is beyond imagination. He even made a robot that is identical to his daughter. “More precisely, I duplicated a robot that looks exactly as my daughter on her age 4 – the same height and appearance. People might still be afraid of the robotic version of my daughter because the movement of the robot is after all not natural as a real person,” Professor Hiroshi said.

“I am very curious about the impact of the robot’s appearance. How important it is to have a high degree of similarity between human beings and robots? I asked a doctor who specializes in the research of the brain activity and operation to evaluate my robot daughter’s function. He concluded that my robot daughter in deed looks like a real person, but has suffered brain injury before…” The entire audience burst into laughter.

“We rely on the computer programming and thus we cannot exactly simulate the operation of human beings’ brains,” Professor Hiroshi continued to explain. “For example, when I pat the robot once, it turns back to me. When I continue patting the robot, it still turns back to me. If the same situation is put on the normal people, they would be so angry about my behavior. In addition, what makes human beings special is the subconscious activities. For example, even though you are sitting in your seat, your brain is still operating. Therefore, what I am trying to do is to install the emotion and reaction into robots. To achieve my goal, I have to do research on neuroscience, to figure out how our brains control our bodies. Robots are not mechanic product. They should include the emotion and feelings of human beings”

Can technology simulate human beings’ minds?

In addition to providing the assistance of business, robots are also designed to accompany elder people or children, such as the story from Surrogates, a Hollywood movie. However, the creation of a ‘humanized’ robot always involves one issue – self-identity of human being.”

Professor Hiroshi gave some examples of application of robots in our real lives. “People are sometimes more willing to interact with robots rather than human when shopping. For example, I had replaced sale persons to robots and made them to promote the product to clients, and surprisingly, they can make better sales than humans. Why? People often avoid talking to sale person in order not to be bothered. However, you will not have this concern if robots do the same talking.”

Professor continued to share another example of robot performing on the stage as a singer. “Robots would make a perfect candidate as a singer because they never get tired and could always keep a perfect smile, and it is hard to recognize the difference of performance between human beings and robots. The emotion and feelings are attached by robots’ performance, which make us wonder what exactly is humans’ minds?”

“It is also why my goal is not simply making a robot that ‘appears’ as the same as humans. I am looking for the deep mind of human beings, which also make me rethink the meaning of being a human,” Professor Hiroshi said. “The next step for me is to make a robot with a mind and heart.”

中文版連結

• 「我複製了我的女兒」－被稱為現代機器人之父的他，要用機器人解決一個哲學問題