Robots Are Your Friends or They Will Be
From: ABC News - 11/03/2006
By: Annabella Poland

Experts foresee robots playing a large role in our everyday lives, performing
tasks such as housework or providing security, by 2031. "The robot would be
able to bathe people, help them dress, feed them...without making people feel
they have lost their privacy and dignity," says Jun Ho Oh, a professor at the
Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology at the National
University of Korea who has built a robot named Albert that can conduct
conversations and even express intricate facial expressions. One of Oh's
goals is to develop the ability for robots to sense human intentions and
serve them without being explicitly commanded. However, right now, Oh says,
"An unstable robot could easily cause involuntary harm, and these are the
issues that still need [to be] resolve[d]." David Hanson, of Hanson Robotics,
has been enlisted by Oh to develop Albert's face. He sees compassion as
necessary for a safe robot: "Without compassion and human emotions, robots
could be come sociopaths." Another robot, named Grace, has successfully
navigated through a conference and interacted with people, trying to discern
their intentions so that she can act in a appropriate manner, explains Marek
Michalowski, a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University who works on human
interaction with Grace. A third robot, named Quasi, was built at Carnegie
Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center to research how characters can be
built to be emotionally expressive and personable. He has eyelids that can
move, and antennae and eyes that can change color to show emotion.
Interactions between test subjects and Quasi have been successful, even
yielding a strong emotional connection, according to the CMU team. 

Read the entire article at:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2627249&page=1

Jun Ho Oh
http://ohzlab.kaist.ac.kr/members/professor.html
http://www.kaist.edu/as_intro/as_nt_prm/as_pr_spl/1177447_1843.html

KAIST Humanoid Robot platform (Albert HUBO)
http://ohzlab.kaist.ac.kr/robot/khr-2_intro.html

Hanson Robotics
http://www.hansonrobotics.com/

Marek Michalowski
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~marekm/
http://www.ri.cmu.edu/people/michalowski_marek.html

Quasi the Robot @ Wired NextFest 2006
http://youtube.com/watch?v=D5FTzu_maHM

Researchers unveil emotive, interactive robot: "Quasi"
http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/02/researchers-unveil-emotive-interactive-robot-quasi/

Quasi - The Intelligent Robot
http://gadgets.qj.net/Quasi-The-intelligent-robot/pg/49/aid/68059

Entertainment Technology Center's "Quasi" Selected as Mascot for the
   World's Fair for Kids
http://www.carnegiemellontoday.com/article.asp?Aid=265