What's wrong with this man?

Take a look at the man below? Can you guess what's "wrong" with him. As I like to say, use your intuition! First, look at the photo, then scroll down and play the video.

 What is he thinking?

Did you guess that the “guy” is a robot? This kind of android is called a “geminoid”, and the first one was created in 2005 by Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro in Japan. A geminoid is robot which looks precisely like its maker. The geminoid is controlled by a person hooked up to a computer system, and any facial movements made by the person are mirrored in the face of the robot.

A little spooky huh? Of course copying the surface features of human beings is the easy part of robotics. It’s the mind that poses the real challenges. Science is yet to satisfactorily answer the question “What is consciousness?”, let alone reproduce it! I have long argued that consciousness contains non-local properties which would appear to be non-replicable via mechanisation. As for intelligence (an entirely different concept), that may well be achieved, if not quite in human-like form.

You can find out more at: http://geminoid.dk
Marcus

Artificial intelligence: Robots that think like humans?

This post is, in part, taken from an upcoming book of mine called Beyond the Frontiers of Human Intelligence

Within the next few decades having a robot psychologist will become popular predicts futurist James Canton (2007). Computers will be capable of making diagnoses of mental problems and issues of well-being. Others have predicted that robots will eventually be better at this than trained psychologists. This is important, because it suggests that robots will be conscious in some way similar to the way human beings are. Personally, I doubt this is going to happen any time in the foreseeable future. Why?

Canton is probably correct that computers will be able to diagnose many psychological problems, and even prescribe courses of treatment and medication. They will probably assume a certain segment of the work of psychologists. However they will not assume it all. How many people will want to sit in front of a machine for fifty minutes pouring their heart out? And how might that same machine detect the depths of the human psyche?