Humanoid Robot Learns Language Like a Baby

[Still Waters]

With the help of human instructors, a robot has learned to talk like a human infant, learning the names of simple shapes and colors.

“Our work focuses on early stages analogous to some characteristics of a human child of about 6 to 14 months, the transition from babbling to first word forms,” wrote computer scientists led by Caroline Lyon of the University of Hertfordshire in a June 13 Public Library of Science One study.

Named DeeChee, the robot is an iCub, a three-foot-tall open source humanoid machine designed to resemble a baby. The similarity isn’t merely aesthetic, but has functional purpose: Many researchers think certain cognitive processes are shaped by the bodies in which they occur. A brain in a vat would think and learn very differently than a brain in a body.

http://www.wired.com.../06/robot-talk/

[DKO]

Awesome but a little creepy too.

[paperdyer]

How long until Data? Hopefully not Lor!

[Alienated Being]

How long until SkyNet?

[pallidin]

"I'll be back"

[Khaleid]

I, for one, would like to know how its software works...

I can't imagine how one would go about programming "learning".

[DKO]

How long until Data? Hopefully not Lor!

I would rather Lore than the slow android at the end of Nemesis lol. (B-4)

Edited June 19, 2012 by DKO

[FlyingAngel]

Tell me it could replace a real baby in the future and can be smarter than Einstein

[MrSkeptical]

Should we regularly change the diaper?