Philips iCat Tells Jokes, Taunts You At Chess
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Friday, 18 of April , 2008 at 12:27 am
iCat is a social research robot designed by Philips who’s been around since 2005. Most recently, iCat is being used as part of the LIREC (Living with Robots and Interactive Companions) Project which studies social interactions between humans and robots and officially begins today in the EU. iCat has been taught to play chess while giving its opponent emotional cues based on how smart it thinks the move is. If you make a move that makes iCat’s position more favorable (based on a predictive chess algorithm) it will smile at you, and if you make a good move, it will frown. The software uses a scale between -100 and +100 to determine the appropriate expression, and large enough changes will trigger other emotions:
“For example, if iCat has a small advantage in the game (in terms of material or position of the pieces) and suddenly its opponent commits a mistake that allows the iCat to capture her queen, the triggered sensation will be a “stronger reward”, which will lead to an emotion of surprise (the sensation is better than we were expecting).”
The iCat robot itself is fairly straightforward. It’s immobile, with a fixed base that includes two touch sensors, a stereo mic, a speaker, and a USB hub (yay!). The head contains servos controlling the eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, and lips, and the head moves up and down while the body rotates from side to side. There are indicator lights on the ears, along with two more touch sensors and a proximity sensor. iCat comes in yellow or orange, and although he is for sale, you’ll have to ask Philips just how much.
After the jump, check out a movie of iCat playing tic-tac-toe and telling dumb jokes.
[ iCat Project (PDF) ] VIA [ Physorg ]
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Category: Research
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