Kansei, Japan's emotional android
Dude, we're not in the Uncanny Valley any more; researchers at Japan's Robot and Science Institute are taking us for a stroll through the freaking Leatherface Valley with Kansei, a creepy new robot with a vocabulary of over 430,000 words that's designed to react emotionally to whatever it's discussing. If you've been waiting for a robot that can turn that frown upside down this is it — researchers have taught Kansei how to smile when it's happy and frown when it's sad by using word association software to build an artificial intelligence program that allows the bot to make judgements about whether it likes something or not.
[Via Mike's List]
