In my last post I lamented that the lack of facial expression in a digital world would create a barrier between learners and learning providers. And as usual, technology was one step ahead of me! Hiroshi Ishiguro is a reasearcher who has created a remote control copy of himself with very accurate looking facial expressions.
View it here
Hiroshi plans to send the driod to meetings in his stead and speak through him. The droid is very impressive, down to making all those subconcious little hand movements we all make when we speak. Perhaps this is the future - instead of attending meetings we will pack up our droid and courier it to the site instead while we sit our office and watch it all on a video screen.
What I did find interesting was my own reaction to the droid. I was impressed but detached until someone prodded his face and he responded with a look of distaste. At that point I felt like they were being cruel, like poking a puppy. Which is rediculous when you consider that he is a machine. But if a machine looks and behaves like a human, how do we in all conscience treat it with anything other than respect? Will we have to have a new class of rights, human, animal and robot? Who can guess but maybe we will look back and see this moment as the point where it all changed! Or maybe I watch too many sci-fi films and read too many Asimov novels!!