Emotion Robots that Learn like Babies

The reality of a robot following us around with view to learning from our daily experiences and actions could soon see the light of day thanks to a new €2.3 million, three year research project known as Feelix Growing.

The project, involving twenty-five roboticists, developmental psychologists and neuroscientists from six countries will concentrate on developing a number of robots that, using vision, audio and sensory devices are able to sense the world, interact with humans and sense emotions which will then lead to them adapting their behaviour according to their ‘experiences’ in a manner that’s likened to the way babies develop.

The research will include building robots that are able to read our facial expressions as well as devices that become attached to things and people in the same way as children which will culminate in two final robots being constructed that integrate all of the advances made during the life of the project.

Thankfully we won’t be seeing any of these robots here at TFTS as the result would no doubt be the first ever record of a robot that’s incapable of doing anything without a beer in its hand and that has to be physically restrained from getting online and buying any gadget that just happens to have a blue LED. Which leads us on to ask, if you had a robot following you around all day learning from your life, what would the result be?

You can read more concerning this fascinating subject via this BBC article.