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© Thompson Reuters 2024Japanese scientists make robot face 'smile' with living skin
By Irene Wang and Rocky Swift TOKYO©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
27 Comments
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Yubaru
You can say that again. But I'll bet that once the "living" get used to it, it will become common place.
PTownsend
Reminds of the Replicants in the movie "Blade Runner" where the authorities needed people like Rick Deckard to sort the Replicants from the humans.
If the Singularity is getting nearer, the globe needs leaders that want to progress and face the future, instead of return to a past era when the myths they believe told them things were great. It could be today there already is a corporation like Tyrell in the movie which could profit from what the Japanese scientists are doing creating robot skin, or maybe people needing face implants could benefit.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Nothing creepy about that at all.
Gareth Myles
@Mark The challenge is to attach living skin to an underlying surface in a way that allows movement without the skin becoming detached. A "smile" is just a demonstration that the skin can be pulled taught without breaking away, and then released again. I read the published article and was left with an unanswered question: is there a mechanism in place to keep the skin alive, or is that the next necessary development?
grund
For prostethic limbs I can imagine it would be useful, but for robots it seems really creapy.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Just how long until the Animatrix, The Second Renaissance?
NB
Japan is again a pioneer, but on the bad side. Making robot faces with smiling living skin is creepy and nonsensical. If Japan wants to fulfill its share in advancing the world, it should stop manufacturing ugly vehicles that devour petroleum and ruin the planet, and start manufacturing nice, advanced in refined EVs. Instead of creepy robots.
NB
I meant to say "and refined".
diagonalslip
in a hundred or two hundred years time, when humans have perfected a self-replicating copy of.... humans.... I wonder what origin myth the new beings will come up with to 'explain' their existence.
Fighto!
Why? Human-like robots with smiles and soft features would be great for the booming hospitality and aged care industries in Japan. They will be able to staff hotels, restaurants, retail shops and nursing homes.
The EV boom seems to have plateaued off worldwide. Japan has 100% gone with hybrid technology - which seems to be the way forward.
hooktrunk2
Meaning reducing the use of animal testing.
Perhaps this could be used for face or limb transplants as well.
Newgirlintown
The ‘ marks around ‘smile’ are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that headline.
Albert
@Japantoday
This is already old news, could you kindly keep track about the actual value of news
Moonraker
Can we traverse the uncanny valley? Maybe we can be trained to in time if we grow up seeing fake smiles on entities neither dead or alive.
Old Sausage
If you knew the basics of neurology, you would know that the difference between a living tissue-covered robot, and you are minimal, that the creepiness of humans is much more scary than that of a robot.
Study facts, your assumptions about yourself are wrong, they do not coincide with medical science findings.
virusrex
The research is not about robots with emotions, is about robots with a natural appearance, so they would cause a different emotion in people seeing them. It is not difficult to see the application for example for robotic prosthesis, some people would benefit a lot from having a functional organ covered by skin so it would look natural to others.
NB
Some humans are indeed scary, but we want to stay human and be more human.
Peter14
Seems like an attempt to create artificial life with an AI brain, but then we must grant such a creation rights or it becomes a slave race. Enough stories along that theme have already been explored in literature and movies.
Creation of a new life form, no matter the fact it is made not born, leaves ethical questions that should be asked and answered before such a creation is successfully made. In my opinion anyway.
Yrral
Maybe if Japanese work on their own smile,lots of Japanese politicians have this unemotional expression on their face, people in the West,let you know by their look what they think of you , without saying anything
hooktrunk2
@Albert
This news was news to me. Speak for yourself please.
Peter Neil
it’s for the life-size doll/robot industry, that’s how creepy it is. life like emotions for robots for obachan? no way.
Gene Hennigh
It seems that this might be the AI robots future. We may be made obsolete, especially since we may not know who is human and who isn't. This research is in its infancy. It may also become specialized enough, loaded with AI functions, that we not only be unable to tell an AI from a human but taken over by it. This is an early concern, but it's a possibility. AI develop meant is going at a rapid and unrestricted rate.
kurisupisu
I don’t want an artificial mechanical entity posing as a human-no thanks!
Manybells
Wow, anything to avoid going on a date with an actual human woman..
virusrex
Creepy is that this was the first application you could think this could be used, especially when the article mentions application on cosmetics and medicine. For me the obvious choice was for people that have prosthetic limbs and would benefit from them looking more natural.
151E
The best way to avoid the uncanny valley problem is for robots to remain clearly robotic and not attempt to deceive people into believing they are anything else.