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Erica, the 'most Beautiful and Intelligent' Android, Leads Japan's Robot Revolution


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Erica the robot.

Researchers say the Erica robot possesses the ability to understand and respond to questions.

Credit: YouTube

Researchers at Osaka and Kyoto universities and the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) are calling "Erica" their most advanced humanoid.

Erica is unable to walk independently, but she possesses improved speech and an ability to understand and respond to questions with an uncanny human-like change in facial expression. The researchers say she should appeal to everyone because images of the facial features of beautiful women were used to develop her face.

Team leader Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University's Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, calls Erica the most beautiful and intelligent android in the world. He says Erica can engage in a flawless chat on a limited number of subjects, and believes free-flowing exchanges could be only a few years away.

Ishiguro says developers will need to build robots with a more human-like presence, which will help people overcome their phobias regarding robots. "They will have to be able to guess a human's intentions and desires, then refer to an internal system in order to partly or wholly match those intentions and desires in their response," he says.

From The Guardian
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