Researchers Dream of Humanizing Androids

Researchers work to make humanoid robots a reality.

ByABC News
February 10, 2009, 10:16 PM

July 11, 2007 — -- Household androids, like flying cars and Martian colonies, have disappointed generations of science-fiction enthusiasts by failing to materialize. Most research in robotics has drifted toward robots that, like Mars rovers and Roombas, have no resemblance to anything living, let alone human. And while it may be cute, let's face it: Asimo can't dance.

Bucking the trend, a small coterie of devoted professionals and amateurs are working to make fully articulated, humanoid and even sinuously dancing robots a reality.

In some cases, their inspiration comes from the strangest sources. Take, for example, lampreys and Lucy Liu.

Jimmy Or, a research professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, got interested in humanlike robot movement when he was a Ph.D. student at the University of Edinburgh. He saw actress Liu perform a belly dance in Charlie's Angels, watching the movie during a long flight. Intrigued, he signed up for lessons, and found that the movements of the dance echoed those of lampreys, the primitive, eel-like creatures he was studying.

If a lamprey's movements so closely resembled those of that intricate human dance, perhaps its neural behavior -- far simpler than that of humans -- could serve as a useful model for articulating robotic spines, Or reasoned.

"At present, almost all humanoid robotics researchers are working on similar things. Their robots have boxlike torsos," Or said. "I believe that the next-generation humanoid robots should have a spine as we do."

The "why?" of that is practical enough. Although there are obvious entertainment purposes, he expects that robots fully supported by flexible motorized spines will ultimately be able to interact with humans the way other humans do, using our "living infrastructure" rather than one tailored to the robots' operational needs.

It's in this view that being made in the image of the creator matters. A Roomba can't make the bed. A self-organizing robotic refrigerator can't flip a pancake. A relish tray on tracks can't defibrillate an elderly coronary victim. An android, in principle, could do all three. "Some people believe that in the future, there will be a market for robot lovers," Or said.