Meet Ibuki, A Spooky Child-Like Android from Japan
This child-like android developed by the ISHIGURO Symbiotic Human-Robot Interaction Project from Osaka University is called Ibuki. If you have a nagging feeling that robots are going to take over the world, then we don’t recommend you watch this video.
To say it has a creepy undertone is putting it mildly. Ibuki has the face of a young Japanese child who has a pretty complete range of facial features.
The video shows Ibuki’s development from a bunch of wires and high-tech robot equipment to an interactive android ready to take on the world. Ibuki was developed as part of the ISHIGURO Symbiotic Human-Robot Interaction Project that aims to ‘develop autonomous social robots that can communicate with multiple humans via various communicative means.'
For ISHIGURO to achieve their goal, they are focused on developing new devices and technologies in surface skin materials, flexible speech recognition and multiple communication functions including task-sensitive comms. The director of the project is Hiroshi Ishiguro who is famous for his belief that robots should have a human-like appearance in order for them to successfully function among us.
In addition to Ibuki, the project has created ERICA (ERATO Intelligent Conversational Android) and CommU (Communication Unity). ERICA has the appearance of a serious young woman ready to listen attentively while CommU is a cute little robot that looks like it has jumped off the pages of a Japanese anime.
Keep up to date with the ISHIGURO Symbiotic Human-Robot Interaction Project to see more human-robots coming soon.