Thanks, Einstein: Robot has scientists grinning
| July 13, 2009 | 6:01 AM
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Albert Einstein has learned how to smile.
Or at least a robot that’s supposed to look like the famed scientist. It actually looks more like Mark Twain — after falling off a Mississippi riverboat. And being hit by the paddlewheel.
OK, so what the robot lacks in appearance, it more than makes up for in smarts. At least that’s what the big brains at the Machine Perception Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, would have us believe.
The computer scientists say they used machine learning to get the robot to pick up facial expressions on its own.
From the pictures, it appears that robo-stein can also frown and look either drunk or “hit over the head with a bottle.” Not to mention E=mc(scared).
The researchers had the robot move its artificial face muscles in random positions, and when it made one that resembled a human expression, it got a “reward” signal. Don’t know what a reward would be for a robot — the taste of vintage WD-40, perhaps?
I’m thinking these folks need to see more Terminator stuff, or stop watching it altogether. No telling how this might end up being used.
At any rate, the researchers’ goal is to get the Einstein robot to mimic human expressions in a social context — wait a second, are we even sure the real one could do that?
Read more at wired.com.
Just for fun:
wired.com’s 50 best robots ever
Einstein, expressions, face, mark twain, robot, smile, terminator, university of miami
