Well… the world’s most lifelike android’s been created.
…aaand I’m flucking terrified of it.
After sitting through the whole video making this face…
… I tried to sort out my feelings.
And speaking of facial expressions, that just might be what makes this damned Geminoid (which means “twin”) thing even creepier. Using these mechanical devices called actuators, the robot is provided a more lifelike aura by being gifted all those little microexpressions you or I unconsciously make when interacting.
While they’re not physically perfect human translations – the dude who constructed them seems to be getting uncomfortably close. Another translation I hope is wrong is when he says “My goal is to understand what is a human – so that’s why I am building a human like robot.” There were two of these abominations in the clip – and his doppelganger droid came complete with arm hair and yellowy teeth and e’rything.
I guess what bothers me about that is that the emphasis on defining what’s human becomes focused on the shell – the appearance and what we perceive it to be doing. Until the machines can be imbued with consciousness (which apparently we’re only a few decades shy of accomplishing), they won’t serve as an accurate description or explain what people are. Not by studying them alone.
The real humanity-defining factor behind these thinkless creatures would lay in our interaction with them. If they become increasingly life-like to the point of a test subject having difficulty discerning whether they’re real or robot – how would subects react upon being told they were having a conversation with a fake human being?
Something bothered me as I watched homeboy interacting with his bot. While he sat with his robot clone, I learned that the machine wasn’t being controlled by a pre-programmed layout. His twin R2D2 was being remotely puppeted. In another room, a grad student sat feeding it bodily responses while having his facial expressions scanned – all of which the machine would receive and carry out in real time.
I mean, if this shiz gets too real, could you or I have our personality hacked by us-puppets?
Could a world leader?
Or if you want to get super out-there, let’s upgrade the current conspiracy theories. ’cause I’m getting bored. So, like, if I’m the president of the illuminati club, why bother hacking a living human? Brainwashing takes too much time.Then they just go mad, shave their heads, stop obeying the order of the dark lord, and kill themselves. Why not just erect a perfect, sexy robotic pop star who never gets fat or old or bored to do your bidding?
And then control it with your own cool moves in the basement on days off between blood sacrifices?
