Tuesday, June 24, 2014

First Android Newscaster In Japan: "My dream is to have my own TV show in the future"

Yes, yes I know it was just four days ago we posted "Answering the Question: 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'":
The answer is no.
'Droids are biomimetic robots and at the current stage of development of artificial intelligence are not capable of dreaming....
But technically these aren't androids, they're gynoids.
And don't try making that "In robots as in language as in love, the male embraces the female" argument and is the room spinning?, whoa, was that an earthquake?, things are developing so fast and the centre cannot hold and, oh hell, maybe the damn things can dream.
From AFP via i24:

Japan unveils 'world's first' android newscaster
The 'Kodomoroid' delivered news of an earthquake and an FBI raid to amazed reporters in Tokyo
Japanese scientists on Tuesday unveiled what they said was the world's first news-reading android, eerily lifelike and possessing a sense of humor to match her perfect language skills.

The adolescent-looking "Kodomoroid" -- an amalgamation of the Japanese word "kodomo" (child) and "android" -- delivered news of an earthquake and an FBI raid to amazed reporters in Tokyo.

She even poked fun at her creator, telling leading robotics professor Hiroshi Ishiguro: "You're starting to look like a robot!".

The pitch-perfect Kodomoroid was flanked by a grown-up fellow robot, who caught stage fright and fluffed her lines when asked to introduce herself.

"Otonaroid" -- "otona" meaning adult -- excused herself after a quick reboot, saying: "I'm a little bit nervous."..MORE

An extension of the quake-bot auto-writer at the Los Angeles Times:
The First News Report on the L.A. Earthquake Was Written by a Robot