Speech Heads, we’re all shaking off the winter in the North Hemisphere these days. The days are getting longer and the creepy talking robots are getting creepier.
In what promises to be a harbinger of a world where even our most basic human functions like breathing, finding the will to go the bathroom, and moving our jaws to swallow cheese balls will be handled by robots, robots are now making preliminary gestures towards teaching school children in Japan.
That’s what Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday.
A robot, Saya, developed by Hiroshi Kobayashi from the Tokyo University of Science (UST) that was originally built to serve as a receptionist, was put before fifth and sixth grade Japanese classes to call roll. So far, that and reprimanding children for being too noisy is about all she can do.
Despite her limitations, Mr. Kobayashi seems tickled by Saya’s potential.
Speaking to the AP he said, “Robots that look human tend to be a big hit with young children and the elderly,” before adding, “Children even start crying when they are scolded.”
Great. A robot that makes kids cry.
Speaking to CNN in 2004, Mr. Kobayashi said of Saya, then only a receptionist, “I am making these robots because I feel that, despite the fact there are many robots made here, very few of them are practical or useful. I thought I should make one that is practical and can be used usefully for human lives.”
The receptionist Saya made a splash in Israel when she served as a receptionist at Ben-Gurion University (which has been misidentified as UST in a number of photos).
Check out this creepy video of her being interviewed on Israeli television:
Notice how her mouth does not move in places when it should and does when it shouldn’t. Eerie. You can search YouTube for a number of other similarly horrifying videos.
The robot, however, is by no means fully operational. Her limited abilities keep her from being practical as little more than a novelty.
As her creator says, “The robot has no intelligence. It has no ability to learn. It has no identity.”
“It is just a tool,” he adds, cruelly.
The creator, Mr. Kobayashi is fairly renowned robot specialist in Japan. He has designed a muscle suit to help the disabled, and serves as general manager at Honda Motors in the division responsible for Honda’s famed Asimo robot. It is, however, unclear whether he is related to competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi, who stunned American eaters when he won Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest after Contest, wolfing down over 50 hot dogs consistently in the 12-minute event.
Some, like my brother, Adam B., speculate that Takeru Kobayashi himself is a robot developed by Hiroshi Kobayashi to school Americans in much the same way that Sayo now schools Japanese children, and bears his name in tribute to his “father.” Other sources, however, suggest that “Kobayashi” is just a really common last name in Japan.
I suppose we may never know. Also still unknown: what TTS engine powers Saya’s voice interactions? If you know, drop us a comment.
This definitely enters the Uncanny Valley.
Flommytherobot is impresseed with the Japanese inventors who are hard at work making robots that approximate the appearance of human, or at least what a human looks like in the estimation of those who sit in laboratories all day building robots.
The teaching robot is very similar in appearance to the robot built by another Japanese inventor to function as his wife. The difficulty with the appearance of the mouth-movement articulations on the teaching robot may be due to trying to accomplish mutliple functions on an insufficient research budget.
These same mouth function problems can occasionally be seen on some humans.
Flommytherobot is pleased to have been of assistance.
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