Applying AI technology, researchers teach a robot to make appropriate reactive human facial expressions. Scientists say this could help build trust between humans and the humanoid robots they interact with.
Long interested in interactions between robots and humans, Columbia Engineering researchers have created EVA, a new autonomous robot with a soft and expressive face that responds to match the expressions of nearby humans. The idea for EVA took shape a few years ago, when my students and I began to notice that the robots in our lab were staring back at us through plastic, googly eyes, said Prof Hod Lipson, who led the team.
15 Jan 2021 I knew you were going to do that!
Can you predict what your partner is going to do or say? Even after a 25 year marriage, this feat of emotive intuition can be hit or miss. But now, a robot has been shown to be able to predict a partner robot s responses after only a few seconds of visual observation.
Image: Predictions from the observer machine: the observer sees the left side video and predicts the behaviour of the actor robot shown on the right. With more information, the observer can correct its predictions about the actor s final behaviours.
Credit: Creative Machines Lab/Columbia Engineering