Скачать или смотреть Robots are getting more social. Are humans ready?

(8 Aug 2018) LEADIN :
Personal home robots that can socialize with people are ready to colonize our living rooms and kitchens.
But are humans really ready to buy a robot companion, especially one that can't clean the dishes or tidy a shelf?
STORYLINE:
Meet Vector, a pet-like robot who strives to be both useful and lovable.
San Francisco-based Anki Inc plans to deliver Vector to buyers this year, priced just under $250.
"You cannot sell a robot for $800 or $1,000 that has capabilities of less than an Alexa," says Boris Sofman, Anki's co-founder and CEO.
Promising a robotic future Anki is pitching Vector as an older brother to its feisty wheeled toy robot Cozmo - of which 1.5 million have been sold since its 2016 debut.
Indeed, they look similar and both chirp more than talk, but Vector will have more grown-up capabilities. It can answer basic questions, set a timer or be a conduit to deliver messages.
It can rest on a tabletop until it hears a door open or, using facial recognition, "sees" a familiar person in view. It responds to petting by purring when you rub its gold-plated back.
"So Vector is always on. He may go to sleep. He will go back to his charger. He'll relax. He will just sit idle for a good chunks of the day. But when he hears somebody coming by or a door opening or somebody stepping into view, especially if he recognizes him, he'll get excited and engage. And so in a lot of ways our compass for this was the interactions that people have with their dogs or cats, or even toddlers where there's a level of lifelike behavior that becomes possible only today with the types of computation sensors and algorithms that have become available. And for us this is building on five, six years of development from Cozmo and before that where the warnings that we've received from those products are what allow us to bring a character like this to life." explains Sofman.
Anki hired animators from Pixar and DreamWorks to give character to Cozmo and Vector.  
"We're approaching it like a character from a film, like a Pixar character. So we literally have an animation studio with folks from Pixar, Dreamworks and these types of backgrounds, they're thinking about how do you make every nuance of this character as engaging and disarming and comfortable as possible with an AI engine that makes these personalities and emotions come to life in the right way. And so, you have these thousands of animations are used in the right way make this character feel like he's a cute and lovable and living character." adds Sofman.
Many investors believe companion robots have great promise if robot-makers can find the right balance of sociability and usefulness.
Bilal Zuberi of Lux Capital says home robotics has huge potential.
"Automation and robotics is probably one of the most exciting investment areas right now. You're seeing people invest not only in fundamental hardware technologies, fundamental software technologies and I said machine learning AI (artificial intelligence) technologies but you're also seeing people invest in specific applications. There are robots being developed for elderly care. There are robots that are being developed for child training and teaching. They have robots that are being developed for entertainment at home or cleaning. And I think, you know, I could argue that right now this is one of the areas that is unspoken of in mainstream media but probably getting billions of dollars of investments practically every year."
Early pioneers in a new vanguard of cute, sociable robots have become early casualties as a result of their hefty price tags and limited abilities.

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