Nico social robot helps diagnose autism

So it's a big day for robots designed to work with kids. Nico doesn't have quite the same cutesy Gelfling appeal as Baizhixing, but then again who says you can't cuddle up with 20 metallic joints and motors. Developed at Yale, Nico was designed to help diagnose autism in children, being better suited to measuring the quantitative aspects of autism evaluation than the average flesh-based physician. The robot mimics the movements of an infact, has basic hand-eye coordination and can recognize other individuals as distinct from itself; it can even recognize itself in the mirror ("Hey, Number 5! Lookin' sharp today!"). Nico also knows how to interpret emotional inflections in the human voice, as well as identifying the locations and activities of nearby others. In fact, Nico sounds way more socially adept than a good percentage of the geeks we know and love. We'll have to have him over at the next Engadget soirée.

[OddManOut @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

How smart can it be ? It looks like it's about to huff that can of spray paint...

[Peff_D @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

It is fact that a human being, regardless of how long or how well they know another human being, lacks the ability to be able to completely understand the complex human emotions of that second human being.

How then, are we expected to believe, that we can then take this ability to reason and give it to a computer, in some binary form, and allow that computer to determine emotional states of human (and in this instance, diagnose autism)?

any model, ANY model of human decision making, emotional determination, learning, etc is still based off of RULES and INPUTS that a developer has to determine, define and enter...

computer's are not magic black boxes, we have to understand human cognition and be able to represent it, before we think we can just "hand it over" to a machine.

[Cullen @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

bs. this is the wave of the future. ill bet its got bluetooth. and a camera. phone.
whatever. i jsut got a wireless keyboard - with a scroll wheel. matches the mouse that came with it. dont much care for ms software, but the hardware is DOPE. puts my logitech to shame. wireless desktop elite for 40$ on amazon. 50$ with 2 day shipping...everyone go buy one
(both wheels are the beautiful smooth ones. fap fap.)

[karmaghost @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

And so how does it diagnose autism? Are you meant to compare the behavior of the child in question to the behavior of the robot and if the robot seems more socially advanced then the child has autism? I'm not seeing how this helps.

On a less serious note, it sounds as though "Nico" must be destroyed if we are to avoid another "Judgement Day"/"Matrix"/etc...

[Ventrex @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

Also, what kind of autism? Classic? High functioning/Asperbergers'? Normally I embrace ideas involving robotics, but in this case I'm trying to reserve judgment since the article doesn't offer much, but I doubt this is a good idea at all. As Peff stated, human beings need to understand the human mind, autism included, before being able to hand it over to a robot. My guess is that it mimics infant behavior and, should the child deviate from the norm, the kid gets slapped with autism? If we're talking high functioning autism, this just seems like some kind of bad dystopian segregation premise for a novel to me. Trying not to be too harsh on it, but it just hits a sour note for me. And is incredibly vague.

[Scott @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

Is it supposed to diagnose autism, or *cause* it?

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

"The robot mimics the movements of an infact"

Any chance it actually mimics the movements of an /infant/? I mean I'm no gadget blogger, and my jargon might not be up to snuff, but...

[ikkedus @ Dec 19th 2005 1:20AM]

touche @Scott