After watching this animatronic robotic infant writhe around on the floor with no skin hiding its internal components, I bet you’ll appreciate those awkward Uncanny Valley CG characters seen in films like The Polar Express.
Partway through the latest Medal of Honor game, you nearly die in an ambush. Your AI buddy saves you, then helps you to your feet. It should be a poignant moment; instead it’s chilling, because his eyes are completely lifeless.
We’ve shown you Jules the robotic head before, but now a team of scientists have added real-time human expression mimicking—and taken him marching right across uncanny valley. A team at the University of Bristol, UK, have combined Jules with some analytical software that looks at a person’s face and tweaks Jules’ 34 servos to copy their expression. The results are like a physical version of the software ‘bot Emily we showed you a few months ago…but combined with Jules’ real 3D rubber head it’s a scary, and I mean scary, taste of what our future robot masters servants will behave like. There’s another even scarier vid, just for Halloween.
