Japanese scientists unveiled a
robot with a sense of humour Tuesday, and claimed it was capable of knowing
when its jokes had fallen flat. The pint-sized roller-skating EMIEW2 pronounced
like the flightless bird is able to have a short conversation with a human
being, without being given a script. The red and white robot picks key words
from a sentence for example, ‘how many’ to try to work out what question it is
being asked, then confirms the inquiry before firing back an answer. Engineers
at Hitachi have programmed the android to understand a range of human
responses, including non-verbal signals like nods. It uses this comprehension
to determine if its interlocutor has got the joke it has just told, said
scientists.
At a demonstration in Tokyo, the
80 centimetre- (32 inch-) tall device answered a question on the number of
people working at the Hitachi facility with the somewhat surreal: "We have
two swans." When its interlocutor appeared puzzled, the robot let on that
it had been joshing. "You got it? I'm kidding. We have about 800 people
working here," it drolly revealed. While the robot's sense of humour may
not be very refined at present, the ability to comprehend reactions was an
important step forward. The new technology makes it possible for a robot to
understand what a human means, even if they only gesture. EMIEW2 its name is a
rather strained acronym for ‘excellent mobility and interactive existence as
workmate’.
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