Project KARA (tech demo for Quantic Dream)

Here is a short film written and directed by David Cage of Quantic Dream. The video runs real time on the PS-3 and was created as a demo of the software game engine to convey different emotions.

What we get though is a disturbing and poignant short about a new robot helper who seems to become self aware. This is grounds for instant disassembly while the android
begs for its' life.

As a tech demo, it's amazing, but its real calling is in the morality play that plays itself out in a few short minutes. It asks us to examine when and in what form can we accept a machine as an alive and thinking individual.

Youtube page

Amazing Realistic New Robot 2010

Is it fascinating or just plain creepy? Here is an amazingly realistic, short demonstration of the humanoid platform, Actroid-F. According to the Wiki article

• An Actroid is a humanoid robot and android with strong visual human-likeness developed by Osaka University and manufactured by Kokoro Company Ltd. (the animatronics division of Sanrio). It was first unveiled at the 2003 International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo, Japan. Several different versions of the product have been produced since then.

Androids: One step closer

I think for the sake of argument or maybe to start some I should define what I think an android is...because I might be totally offbase...maybe. Anyway - First Robot: Mechanical /electrical, autonomous or not, humaiform or not, for all intents a machine. Robot of course will evolve and may at some point be indistinguishable from human, but if they are still mechanical and electrical - they are a robot. Cyborg: a melding of the human and mechanical /electrical. Usually this is thought of as an "improvement" but there will come a time when you will be able to swap out most if not all your biological structures for artificial - Cyborg. Android: an artificial construct that mimics human (or other) life forms by electro-chemical and possibly mechanical means. It goes without saying that a true android would be autonomous and very likely a thinking self aware unit unto it self. I know I have oversimplified this greatly but I really did have an article in mind.

This one was in Science Daily discussing research on working artificial never networks.
From the article:

• Research that was recently featured on the cover of Nature Physics, (researchers) have taken the first step in this direction by creating circuits and logic gates made of live nerves grown in the lab.

It would seem that neurons grown in culture, they don’t form complex ‘thinking’ networks. What scientists are working on is a way to make them more "brain" like. What has been accomplished so far, with strict controls on how the cells grow and interconnect, is to build simple logic circuits. Yes, another name for that is computer circuits. One of the researchers, Prof. Elisha Moses of the Physics of Complex Systems Department said, As we find answers, we get closer to understanding the conditions needed for creating a synthetic, many-neuron ‘thinking’ apparatus.’

Yes that sounds like what it would take to be a step closer to creating an android, or any other device that required bio vs electrical impulses.

Check out the complete article here

The Philip K. Dick android

Oh and you want something that will really creep you out? Check out the Philip K. Dick android.

This is so very wrong...I watched it for about 30 seconds while it tried to look people in the eye and I ran screaming from the room.