Is she nice? China's first interactive robot can respond to human orders, make micro facial expressions and do morehttps://t.co/MLs5TS5Jj7
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) April 15, 2016
Welcome to the uncanny valley, where CGI children look offputtingly creepy, and robot women give you the mechanical side-eye. Jia Jia is the latest robot from China, developed by the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, in Anhui province. UTSC’s R&D team, also responsible for the model service robot Kejia, spent three years working on Jia Jia.
The work shows—Jia Jia is much more complex, with lips that sync with her voice, eyes that move naturally, and a humanlike form (Kejia was all metal angles). This, according to team director Chen Xiaoping.
No, she’s not perfect. Crying and laughing are too complex for Jia Jia as of yet. Her movements are a bit mechanical (surprise!), and her speech still borders on the robotic. Still, though, Jia Jia is quite an accomplishment. She can tell when you’re getting ready to take a picture of her, and even warns, “Don’t come too close to me when you are taking a picture. It will make my face look fat.” A vain robot! What’s next, science?
Xiaoping definitely has goals for his creation. “We hope to develop the robot so it has deep learning abilities,” he said at the unveiling on Friday. “We will add facial expression recognition and make it interact more deeply with people.”
Ultimately, he hopes to develop her into a “robot goddess” because apparently no one saw Ex Machina.