Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore developed a robot that resembles its creators in both appearance, ability, and with the presence of a personality.
According to The Daily Mail, the robot is named Nadine and has various capabilities like conversations in which she is able to remember if she has already met you and, if so, what you talked about then.
"Robotics technologies have advanced significantly over the past few decades and are already being used in manufacturing and logistics. As countries worldwide face challenges of an aging population, social robots can be one solution to address the shrinking workforce, become personal companions for children and the elderly at home, and even serve as a platform for healthcare services in future," Nadia Thalmann, an expert in virtual humans and a faculty from NTU's School of Computer Engineering, said in a press release.
Personality is not all that new to artificial intelligence, as tech giants like Apple and Google have advanced their voice command technology to the point where users can carry out conversations with their devices.
Nadine is just the future of the A.I. technology. While NASA is already developing a humanoid robot to one day assist astronauts on long deep-space flights, but Nadine could make her way to the workforce. Robots like her could make it difficult for people to take sick days.
"Over the past four years, our team at NTU have been fostering cross-disciplinary research in social robotics technologies - involving engineering, computer science, linguistics, psychology and other fields - to transform a virtual human, from within a computer, into a physical being that is able to observe and interact with other humans," Thalmann said. "This is somewhat like a real companion that is always with you and conscious of what is happening. So in future, these socially intelligent robots could be like C-3PO, the iconic golden droid from Star Wars, with knowledge of language and etiquette."
