Beware: As if fakes weren’t enough, Facebook has got Robot chatters now
By ANIThursday, May 7, 2009
LONDON - A robot is being given its own Facebook profile page in a bid to bridge the divide between humans and robots. With the development, researchers are hoping to foster meaningful relationships with people. The page will be populated with interactions the robot has with people as well as photos of the time it spends in human company.
The idea is of Dr Nikolaus Mavridis and co-researchers as they look into ways of overcoming the reluctance of people to stay in touch with robots, reports The BBC.
In a paper on the pre-print website Archive.org server, the researchers say they want to find out if this can be thwarted by giving humans and robots a pool of shared memories.
The platform for exploring the problem is a robot created by Mavridis and colleagues from the Interactive Robots and Media Lab (IRML) at the University of the United Arab Emirates plus co-workers in Germany and Greece.
The robot has three software modules that aid it human interaction. One module distinguishes faces of humans and the pictures they post on Facebook.
A language module allows the machine to have real-time discussions and helps it continue a catalog of its friends and their data on Facebook. This allows it to maintain its own Facebook profile. It also has a supplementary range finder, touch screen and stereo camera.
The robot is named and modeled after Arabic scholar Ibn Sina aka Avicenna.
The robots interactions with humans will be logged on its Facebook profile. (ANI)
