WTF technology?!?!?!?!
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m really an 87-year old woman and am considerably impressed every time I find out what more technology we have discovered. But this? Seriously? This is actually real folks. Apparently a robot who was programmed to love (awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww) has gone crazy and smothering!! (That’s what happens when you only program the robots with Lifetime original movies).
“Kenji was part of an experiment involving several robots loaded with custom software designed to let them react emotionally to external stimuli. After some limited environmental conditioning, Kenji first demonstrated love by bonding with a a stuffed doll in his enclosure, which he would embrace for hours at a time. He would then make simple, but insistent, inquiries about the doll if it were out of sight. Researchers attributed this behavior to his programmed qualities of devotion and empathy and called the experiment a success.
What they didn’t count on were the effects of several months of self-iteration within the complex machine-learning code which gave Kenji his initial tenderness. As of last week, Kenji’s love for the doll, and indeed anybody he sets his ‘eyes’ on, is so intense that Dr. Takahashi and his team now fear to show him to outsiders.
The trouble all started when a young female intern began to spend several hours each day with Kenji, testing his systems and loading new software routines. When it came time to leave one evening, however, Kenji refused to let her out of his lab enclosure and used his bulky mechanical body to block her exit and hug her repeatedly. The intern was only able to escape after she had frantically phoned two senior staff members to come and temporarily de-activate Kenji.
“This is only a minor setback. I have full faith that we will one day live side by side with, and eventually love and be loved by, robots,” he said.”
Thank God. Who else wants some robot love up in here AAAOOOO!!!! >>high fives<< Mmmmmm, I can just feel those cold metal arms wrapping around my delicate and fragile body. Way to go Science.
Full story–>http://www.muckflash.com/?p=200
