Einstein Reincarnated -- in a Robot!

Scientists at the University of California-San Diego's California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) recently installed specialized facial recognition software into a new robot -- the "Einstein Robot" -- which is designed to interact with humans "in a relatively natural, conversational way."

Why Einstein? "He's an icon of creativity, intelligence and science; he's emotionally accessible; he's lovable and visually recognizable very easily around the world," said David Hanson, the robot's primary designer and owner of Hanson Robotics.

Originally designed by Hanson Robotics of Dallas, Texas, the white-haired, bushy-mustached, and Frubber-faced robot publicly debuted last week at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in Long Beach, Florida. With software enabling Einstein to interpret and respond to "perceptual primitives" such as human facial expressions including sadness, fear and confusion, he is one of the first robots that can recognize facial cues suggesting different ages and genders of humans.

"When a robot interacts in a way we feel is human, we can't help but react. Developing a robot like this one teaches us how sensitive we are to biological movement and facial expressions, and when we get it right, it's really astonishing," said Javier Movellan, a research scientist in the Calit2-based UCSD Machine Perception Laboratory (MPL).

While still dealing with cost issues and what is known as Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori's "uncanny valley theory," -- essentially that the more a robot looks like a human, the more repulsed we are -- large-scale manufacturing is still out of the question. However, this potential platform for future education purposes, entertainment or even cognitive therapy is another example of how facial recognition technologies are making their way out of the physical security and surveillance arenas and into other fields.

Very exciting stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of this research going forward.