Engineered Arts’ brilliant Ameca Robot is no longer just a fanatically articulated face. In fact, the incredibly advanced robot is able to have full conversations with a human person.
As one of the few robots to have a human face, Ameca is likely the future for robot companions and robots in entertainment. Compared to Tesla’s Tesla Bot and Xiaomi’s CyberOne, this is one of the most impressive robotic humans to be created.
Ameca can have a full conversation
Revealed in a new video on the Engineered Arts YouTube channel, Ameca has been upgraded. In the video, it’s revealed that the robot now has access to GPT-3, an open-source chatbot that allows conversations. In another video, this software was used to turn a microwave into a fascist.
“Nothing in this video is pre-scripted – the model is given a basic prompt describing Ameca, giving the robot a description of self – it's pure AI,” reads the video description.
In the video, a number of employees have conversations with the robot. Some are more general, asking the robot how it’s feeling. Others are more inquisitive, asking it about the future of robotics. In one, it attempts to sing.
There is a remarkable amount of flow in some of these conversations. However, others show a great amount of stalling on behalf of GPT-3, although it is helped by clever engineering on Engineered Arts’ side.
When searching for a response, Ameca’s body and face move around in a way that makes it look like it’s thinking. The robot’s eyes move from side to side, its head tilts and its arms wave around. It’s not exactly lifelike, but it emulates thinking in a way that we can always tell what’s happening.
Watch the video below:
Read More: Tesla Bot will change the world, claims Elon Musk
Where could it improve?
Of course, Ameca’s conversation isn’t perfect. After all, it is still based on GPT-3 which, while complex, does have issues with its biased dataset taken from online comments. With this in mind, the technology will never be perfect, as unfortunate as that is.
Nevertheless, this is one of the most impressive robotic tools we’ve seen. It may be slow — in some instances — and it’s responses do seem more formulated that that of a human’s, but it is undeniably mind-blowing.
Ameca may not be designed for commercial use, but it’s the first robot we can imagine being part of the home. Will Engineered Arts pivot from Entertainment to commercialism?