You might have already had the impressive, albeit slightly uncomfortable, experience of meeting Ameca, one of the “world’s most advanced human-shaped robots” that can mimic a range of human expressions. Well, she’s now got a pal called Azi. With the aid of artificial intelligence (AI), the couple can share expressive conversations that are equal parts impressive and unsettling.
The two robotic busts can communicate with each other thanks to the power of Chat-GPT, which they demonstrate in a new video from Engineered Arts (although they don’t appear to like each other very much).
The crux of the demonstration, however, lies in the robots’ ability to perform human expressions. They achieve this with the help of 32 actuators, five for the neck and 27 for facial control alone, including 12 in the lips, two in the jaw, four in the eyeballs, four in the eyelids, four in the eyebrows, and one in the nose.
In the short video, Azi tells a bad joke about internet cookies, to which Ameca responds with squinted eyes and a crinkled nose that perfectly conveys a sense of disgust. In turn, Azi replies with a downtrodden expression and sullen eyes, as if he knows his joke really sucked.
The pair were created by Engineered Arts, a UK-based robotics company that makes humanoid robots “for entertainment, communication and education.” The company rents out its robots, including Ameca, for events and will even put together 5 minutes of personalized content for the robot to perform.
You can also buy the robots, although they’re fairly shady about the price, noting on their website that it’s “more than a cup of coffee. Less than an island.”
Fear not, though. Engineered Arts are keen to point out they have no interest in militarizing their robots and the risk of them orchestrating a world take-over is negligible.
“Our robots are completely safe. They’re inherently compliant and gentle, so even if a robot was to move and accidentally hit you, it wouldn’t hurt,” the company claims on its website.
“Our innovative robots are designed to be true to life, not to take life. They’re 100% innocent entertainment. We’d never work with the military but we would happily make a replica terminator for an exhibition.”.
