A lot of people would respond, “Of course not! Robots are just a bunch of wires and metal!” Though this may be true, the rapidly growing field of Artificial Intelligence is starting to spark some interest in such questions.
Kismet, is a robot that has been built at MIT. This robot is very unique. “She” is able to mimic human emotional expression, as well as recognize different human emotional responses. For example, when someone speaks to her in a gentle tone of voice, she acts happy by actually smiling and raising her eye brows. When someone speaks to her in a loud, aggressive tone of voice, she frowns and acts submissive by retreating.
The main features of the robot Kismet is her auditory, visual and expressive systems. Her facial features consist of eyebrows, ears, eyelids, jaw, lips and a head. There are little cameras in her eyes that allow her to have a field of vision and display abilities such as eye detection. There are four microprocessors needed to execute the perception system, motivational system, behavioral system, motor skill system, and the face motor system. It takes another nine (400MHz) PC’s to control the visual processing, visual attention, and the eye/neck motor functions! Talk about high maintenance!
Though Kismet is obviously a machine, it is that crazy to think that one day machines WILL be able to feel? That’s a question left for you to ponder….for now.
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