Connecting with robots

Hiroshi Ishiguro is director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, part of the Department of Systems Innovation in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, Japan. A notable development of the laboratory is the Actroid, a humanoid robot with lifelike appearance & visible behavior such as facial movements.

Hiroshi builds androids. Beautiful, realistic, uncannily convincing human replicas. Academically, he is using them to understand the mechanics of person-to-person interaction. But his true quest is to untangle the ineffable nature of connection itself.

Hiroshi believes that since we are hardwired to interact with & place our faith in humans, the more humanlike we can make a robot appear, the more open we’ll be to sharing our lives with it. Toward this end, his teams are pioneering a young field of research called human-robot interaction, a hybrid discipline that combines engineering, AI, social psychology & cognitive science. 

Would you trust robots to play a significant role in our future cities? Analyzing & cultivating our evolving relationship with robots, Hiroshi seeks to understand why & when we’re willing to interact with, & maybe even feel affection for, a machine. & with each android he produces, Ishiguro believes he is moving closer to building that trust.