Engineered Arts, a robotics design company, has released a video of its latest robot, Ameca. And the least we can say about Ameca is that it looks very much like a real human. The English company intends to make it a platform for AI development.
With its video presentation of its robot Ameca, English company Engineered Arts, specialized in the design and manufacture of robots, has stunned the online community. In the short sequence of under a minute, we first see the famous robot appearing to be "asleep" -- or at least with its eyes closed -- then it starts to "wake up" and show a multitude of expressions associated with living beings. Open mouth, frown, looking at its hands, expressions of concern, a big smile and even startled, Ameca is a surprising creation. The company describes it on its website as a kind of humanoid robot platform. It will be used to develop future robotic technologies for human-robot interaction.
The company's slogan, "Human-like artificial intelligence needs a human-like artificial body (AI x AB)", demonstrates the company's goal. By developing a robot with expressions that are as realistic as possible, Engineered Arts wants to accelerate interactions between humans and machines and give them a genuine feeling of interacting. Reactions on the internet to Ameca are for the most part extremely positive at this point.
Artificially intelligent?
Unlike Boston Dynamics's Atlas robot, Ameca cannot move. Nor is it able to speak for the moment. The movements shown in the video are planned in advance and no AI controls the humanoid robot for the time being Engineered Arts remains rather mysterious on the subject of artificial intelligence: "Is Ameca AI ? A big question. Ameca contains some software which can be described as ‘artificially intelligent,' but the question is bigger than that...The main purpose of Ameca is to be a platform for developing AI."
If you're creeped out by this robot and want to check it out for real, both Ameca and Mesmer -- another robot from the company -- will be at CES 2022 in January. Who knows, maybe by then they'll have had time to make some new improvements...
