China's scientists have designed Jia Jia, a realistic robot that can pose for pictures and chat with real humans. This year, at two high-profile national events on artificial intelligence, the 1.6-meter-tall robot had already acted as a hostess.
Engadget reports that a team of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China has unveiled recently the realistic robot that looks almost human-like. Jia Jia can make some facial expressions, can interact and talk with real humans.
The team of Chinese scientists spent three years designing Jia Jia, ensuring that her eyes glance around the room naturally and her mouth moves when she speaks. But their realistic robot can't yet cry or laugh and those features might come with a version two of the robot.
The Chinese scientists were quoted as saying that they wanted to emphasize in their design the diligence, compassion and intelligence of the machine. Despite having no plans to mass produce Jia Jia, the researchers intend to continue working on improving the robot.
According to South China Morning Post, Chen told the newspaper that his research team plans to make Jia Jia more sophisticated. Team leader Chen Xiaoping explained that the researchers intend to give Jia Jia facial recognition and deep learning capabilities in the future.
The realistic robot will be able in the future versions to interact with its environment even without prior programming. As for now, Jia Jia is able to display emotion through facial expressions, chat and move its body.
More interesting is its capacity to sense where it is placed. For instance, according to reports, the robot was even able to tell the photographers to not get too close when it felt they were taking an unflattering picture of it.
The "robot goddess" Jia Jia borrowed its beautiful features from five women from the university in Beijing. The android was modeled after the looks of real women used as "image models" in order to ensure that it looks "attractive."
