Moya, ‘the World’s First Biomimetic Robot’ Emulates Human Features Down to Body Temperature

trappedslider said:

Did they exist before or after widespread use of UAVs?

Imagine if we stopped the development of the car before we had all the laws (some of which are rewritten often) and safety features put in place.

EDIT: Or the computer

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GreyLord said:

As I said at the beginning...Assassination Droids!!!!



Like the Imperium of Man!

Actually, being more serious on the topic...

I can think of several real reasons to have Robots developing in the direction of Moya.

#1 - As so many in the thread have already pointed out, it could be utilized for certain purposes. However, I think it's more than just that type of self-indulgement purpose of exploitation. Have you seen Serenity (Firefly Movie). In it you have an isolated individual who's only real comfort (and who they consider as a real person) is their humanlike Robot. In today's society there is a growing number of people that will not find a companion and many that don't have a friend. Even if it's a Robot there are those that this may actually help them with companionship, friendship and having someone (or something) there that they can have to talk to and simply be around.

#2 - As ugly as it could be, unless we could prove that Robots with AI become self aware (in which case, in this type of instance we may have a SkyNet or Geth (Mass Effect) situation), I expect we would use them as slaves. There is a segment of humanity that, in all it's ugly truth, wants to have a lower class that they can command and boss around. They don't want some "robot" that doesn't look human, but something that actually is human (or humanlike in appearance). They would use these for all our menial jobs, all the servant (housekeeping) jobs, etc.

They want something that would look like us, but that does the work.

#3 - Just as sinister, once you buy a robot (see slavery in #2) you only have to pay for upkeep. You don't have to pay it. We already use robots in factories (that don't look human) but people want to see a person if they go into an office. If we could replace those hospitality workers (for example, restuarants), those cashiers (and I think Amazon already tried something like this with automatic checkout, others are trying something similar with self-checkout but would prefer something where people cannot sneakily shoplift past the cameras), and maybe even doctors and nurses if the AI gets advanced enough with robots a bunch of rich people would be very happy with that result.

I can think of a lot of scenarios where people would prefer a Robot that looks like them to something that doesn't.

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trappedslider said:

Did they exist before or after widespread use of UAVs?

Imagine if we stopped the development of the car before we had all the laws (some of which are rewritten often) and safety features put in place.

EDIT: Or the computer

Click to expand...

Bohandas said:

Or at least people who are already invested in that pyramid scheme have convinced you its a problem

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Tonguez said:

nobody is advocating stopping development of robots though, thats a straw robot.

What is being mooted is setting guiderails so that pursuit of human-passing robots is controlled. If designers want to build units that look like R2D2 or CP3O then go for it, but do we need androids that are indistinguishable from humans, right down to their body temperature, scent and body lubricants?

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Aeson said:

I can think of medical uses. Human like body temperature could mean warm hands. The robot checks your pulse with a cold hand might cause your heart to race. A more human appearance can put a patient at ease. How about feeding time in a nursery? Body warmth for the baby is important. A robot can stay consistent with care no matter how long it works. A nurse gets tired and burned out, and will be more likely to make mistakes.

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jian said:

I really meant any internal heating to match and maintain 37C, which is really a lot of effort to go to for medical devices.

Generally, soft plastics at something resembling human skin/flesh consistency will warm up to and retain room temperature (I mostly know about this from various dummies used in medical and first aid training like resuscitation dummies or those used to practice taking blood). So they’ll be a comfortable temperature for taking blood or handling people unless you keep your robot in the freezer for some reason, so they don’t need internal heating for that. So no, there’s only one reason to internally warm a robot to 37C, sadly.

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trappedslider said:

so you disagree with the line "Body temperature may not seem that important, but studies have shown that we gauge temperature through touch to relate to others and feel kinship"

I'll also point out that the article says nothing about internal temperature and that people are jumping the gun to the gutter because it's the internet.

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