MIT Domo Robot is the New Old Blue Eyes

Monday April 16, 2007

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There was a considerable uproar over the Super Bowl commercial featuring an out-of-work, despondent assembly line robot that eventually "kills" itself by jumping off a bridge. Some thought it was making light of suicide. Perhaps, but the reality is that assembly robots have no free will, let alone feelings. They run on a script, doing the same thing over and over again. Robots that appear to feel or at least have some free will are, however, closer than you think.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's newest research robot, Domo, is a blue-eyed wonder that sees faces, recognizes objects and has the ability to carry out simple tasks like transferring an object from one "hand" to another, identifying it and even carefully placing it on the shelf. The robot, which like its predecessors, MIT social robots Cog and Kismet, sits atop a table and is connected to a bank of computers, was developed over a three year period by MIT postdoctoral associate Aaron Edsinger.

No one is claiming Domo has feelings or that it would ever need therapy. Then again when it locks onto you with those big, blue, very human-like eyes (driven by 12 computers) and then responds and even asks you not to touch it there (okay, it just says "ouch"), can a session with Dr. Phil be far behind?

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Posted By: Lance Ulanoff

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