Sunday, October 3, 2010

B.R.A.I.N.S. - A Man's Dream

"If something is perfect, then there is nothing left for us to do. There is no room for imagination, no way to gain additional knowledge or grow." - Le Trung

"It actually starts back in the 70s during my childhood where I spent a lot of time watching Japanese anime which often featured robot themes. I remember saying to myself as a child, 'I will build one of those when I grow up,'" says Le Trung on his website. While most reviewers and bloggers bash his creation and dub him a pervert for this, the 33-year-old inventor is still going strong on perfecting his fem-bot.
Aiko fem-bot (Source: Project Aiko)
Aiko, which means "beloved one" in Japanese, is a robot that Le began building in August 2007. Having spent approximately $21,000 of his own money on the project so far, he is looking to further develop Aiko, giving her even more abilities than it has now.
While it may not seem very different from other androids that are being developed today by prestigious, well-funded organizations, Aiko is very unique in its artificial intelligence. The B.R.A.I.N.S. software (Bio Robot Artificial Intelligence Neural System) that Trung himself developed is capable of object and voice recognition, as well as actually learning new 3-D objects that are not already in its database simply by observing them and listening to what they are.
 

 
Here is how it works:
"The main vision system (main left) recognizes the person’s face and facial expressions. It also identifies 3D objects. The system tracing human motion (top right) identifies any movement in light blue. Unfortunately it is difficult to see here as I inadvertently wore blue, but if examined closely, there is a light blue area around my right hand as I wave it and the right side of my body which moves with my hand. The third system (bottom right) detects the point of interest. Notice that the AI ignores the chair and anything else in the background. The AI focuses on the most important “object” in the room, in this case, me."
B.R.A.I.N.S. software. (Source: Project Aiko)
The robot can currently speak and understand over 13,000 sentences. When Aiko is connected to the Internet, it also has the capability of telling the current time, as well as local and international weather and temperature.
Aside from the abilities already mentioned above, Aiko has another very neat feature. It is capable of reading and doing math. The AI system is capable of character recognition, which is then converted to speech. As far as math goes, it will solve any complex equation written on paper, along with the used variables with their values below. The reading and math demonstration can be seen 1:50 into the video linked at the end of the blog.
Aside from the innovative AI, Aiko also has sensors all over its body, allowing the robot to respond to physical contact to the point where she can detect pain and respond accordingly. In one of the video demonstrations, Le asks Aiko to give him its hand and to tell him when it starts feeling pain. As he increases the tightness of his grip, Aiko moves its hand away from him and says, "Please let go of my arm. You are hurting me. What did you do that for?" As Le asks Aiko to give him the arm again, Aiko replies, "No. I don't want to play that game anymore. It hurts my arm."
Trung has a bright future planned for Aiko. In later versions, he plans on implementing facial expressions and ability to move around, as Aiko is currently confined to a wheelchair.
One man's dedication and imagination can go far when he puts effort into his creation. While I am critical of humanity's potential future when Artificial Intelligence is taken a step too far, I cannot help but admire the science behind Aiko and Le's unyielding dedication.

The 6 minute demonstration of Aiko's abilities can be found below.


 References

1. Trung, Le, "Project Aiko," October 3, 2010,
    <http://projectaiko.com>.

11 comments:

  1. "If something is perfect, then there is nothing left for us to do. There is no room for imagination, no way to gain additional knowledge or grow." - Le Trung

    there is something left to do... CORRUPT IT!! well thats what usually happens anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting...but kinda creepy lol

    ReplyDelete
  3. I understand what they are trying to do, but by giving it a human face the robot falls right into the uncanny valley.

    ReplyDelete
  4. that first picture is kind of creepy

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't know if I can fap to this... oh well, GTL Everyday!

    ReplyDelete
  6. those dolls are weird... makes me want to fap?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yeah, I agree with you, D.A.B., about it being uncanny.

    And you'd be surprised. I wrote up a different blog about sex robots last year. I'll re-post it here in a bit. The direction in which this particular technology is headed is pretty scary...

    ReplyDelete