Emotional robot has empathy, understands your frustration
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 18th 2008 8:21AM
posted Jul 18th 2008 8:21AM
Not that robots with emotions are anything new, but a project going on in Europe could perfect the art of crafting mechanical people that can "learn when a person is sad, happy or angry." The Feelix Growing project is getting even more advanced with software that gives robots the power to understand how a person is feeling based on feedback from cameras and sensors. The bots look at a human's facial expression and key in on their voice and proximity to determine what kind of mood they're in. As with the recently announced UMass Mobile Manipulator, this creature too learns from experience, and there's a video explaining just what we mean waiting for you in the read link.[Via Physorg]
Empathy huh? Can it empathize with the uneasy feeling I get from its creepy eyes?
If for one, welcome our new robot........ oh, you want to give me a hug!?
I, for one, welcome our empathetic overlords.
A few months back, the LIREC (Living with Robots and Interactive Companions), a European Union project announced their advances on that subject in this article: http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=526&doc_id=155718 .
They had developed emotional bonding and personality transference on robots.
It can tell when I'm happy, sad, or angry, but can it tell when I'm horribly creeped-out? God, what an awful, awful photo.
Yeah, "Wall-E" this thing is not. O.o
yeah, its cool to try to develop this stuff,but seriously, we need to put this money towards feeding thing hungry, or housing the homeless...WTF!
what an odd typo...
**feeding the hungry
Or - we could slaughter the homeless and burn their bodies to help power the labs where we develop the future - like a turbocharger for evolution and science!
*evil genius laugh*
A turbocharger for evolution and science would take a lot more planning than you would think. Before that's possible we would need to focus on replacing the stock internals...
and we low ranked this guy, why?
This is not empathy. It's the veneer of empathy. And that can be more dangerous than empathy per se.
..or more dangerous than the LACK of empathy!
But alas, for it can never steal the unconditional love that I hold for Keepon...
Though good to see they reference you guys there, and they seem to have come some way from http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/02/happybot.jpg :D
It would probably be pretty easy to have a robot feel sorry for you...
Is this a picture from one of the "Wallace and Grummit" characters?
...or even the "Wallace and Gromit" characters. ;-)
Oh this would be so sweet for my friend...
He's always looking for a pity party when his old lady gets on his case.
You're gonna need some therapy after you wake up in the middle of the night with this thing standing over you.
As long as it doesn't care enough about me to put me "out of my misery"
With all the technological advancements in robotics, I find it strange how they always fail at making the robot a little less creepy. I would never want this thing staring me dead in the eye.
OMG, it looks like Franklin...*sings* "for British eyes only" & "Mr F"
dude... he sang "it ain't easy being white" and i think that's about it!
well, he did after he got washed... rofl
Well I, for one, welcome our emotional robot overlords.
At least they'll let us cry while we slave away.
Please let the meme die...
Better yet, let the people who refuse to stop using the meme die.
Pretty simply algorithms involved here. If its accelerometers can detect it flying through the air, then coming to a sudden stop against the wall, then it will determine that I'm angry.
Or is that happy?
Guess it's back to the drawing board (or CAD station). Either way, Geppetto is rolling in his grave.
What good is making a robot that can feel sorry for you if doesn't give you sympathy sex? I won't be ditching my doll for Johnny 5 any time soon.
No programmer on earth could make it feel the white hot terror that takes me over in its company.
Rumour has it that Apple will be buying in a large stock of them ready for the iPhone 3.0 release next year, pre-programmed with suitable phrases:
"I'm sorry you've to queue for 10 hours, please wait another 24 until your phone is activated. I'm sorry, I feel your pain"
"I'm sorry your phone is bricked, I really feel your pain"
"I'm sorry we lied about our new mobile me service and conned you out of $99, I really feel your pain"
etc etc etc
;)
I think I prefer this one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7IxliAPjAk
Forget Uncanny Valley, this thing goes down below that into the realm of Dear God What's Wrong With Its Eyes!?
*shudder*
It looks creepy because it has no eyelids.
Dude, that thing is going to leap-up and kill me.
This is what happened to the Cabbage Patch dolls, they grew older and creepier.