Android that "Expresses" like Human

You recall a few installments away two episodes on a computer chess wizard that had beaten a human Go grandmaster. Well, I have here an episode on a humanlike android that behaves and expresses like a human.

A research group at Osaka University has developed a new type of android that appears mechanical outside and executes subconscious mannerisms of humans. The android.named, ”Robot Olta”, made its debut at Tokyo's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, July 29.

Robot Olta, developed by a research group with Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University, had its mechanical head and torso bared open and irregularly executes delicate motions of a human - reacting to music performed around, brings its hands closer to the chest, stretching elbows, moving facial parts at random, etc.

The research group had thus far produced various types of android in the images of a young woman, college professor, eminent talents, etc. each behaving to make humans "feel closer to the robot", but the problem always remained of minimizing their unnatural movements.

Robot Olta is an attempt, says Prof. Ishsiguro, to study how humans feel any closer to an android with mechanical features behaving human-like. Prof Ishiguro further elaborates:

"We've made our android approach humans not with external appearance but from inside. It execute most human-like motions to make humans feel watching a like of them merely watching it. It makes humans wonder what they are."

Lately, we see a numerous robots actually at work in various scenes - robots that mind no business cleaning up the floors or a two-legged android offering verbal services to the customers, etc.
I've witnessed lifelike baby seals keeping cognitive dementia patients such comforting company.

A robot is not longer a piece of mechanism - that's for sure.
(Nathan Shiga)