Inspired by Japans unique spiritual beliefs they are blurring the boundaries between humans and robots.
“It is a question of where the soul is. Japanese people have always been told that the soul can exist in everything and anything. So we don’t have any problem with the idea that a robot too has a soul. We don’t make much distinction between humans and robots.” – Roboticist, Hiroshi Ishiguro
Gemonoid HI-1 is a doppelganger droid built by its male co-creator, roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro. It is controlled by a motion-capture interface. It can imitate Ishiguro’s body and facial movements, and it can reproduce his voice in sync with his motion and posture. Ishiguro hopes to develop the robot’s human-like presence to such a degree that he could use it to teach classes remotely, lecturing from home while the Geminoid interacts with his classes at Osaka University.
NOTE: this video was published on Youtube Mar 17, 2012
