āAS SOON as you see one, you get a chill down your spine,ā says Will Jackson at Engineered Arts, .
The Cornwall-based company makes robots for high-profile events such as film or TV launches, as well as for tourist attractions such as Madame Tussauds. Boasting face-tracking software, speech recognition, state-of-the-art animatronics and body parts ranging from rudimentary feet (below) to lifelike eyeballs, its creations often have people doing a double take.
The robot pictured being assembled is Fred, a character inspired by the TV show Westworld (for our review of season 2, see āWestworld: a complex tale of robot awakening has us rivetedā). As a publicity stunt, robot Fred was left in a London pub and would strike up conversations with people as they went past. āWhat are your thoughts on the impending humanoid robot invasion?ā he asked one punter. You can imagine a range of possible replies, depending on the proximity to closing time.
Just basic speech and some subtle movements are enough to give an unnerving sense that the robot is alive. However, animatronics still has a long way to go before it is truly convincing, before robots can escape the uncanny valley. āThere is nothing that matches human muscle,ā says Jackson ā sophisticated motors just canāt cope with the range of movement we are capable of. āYou are just left gobsmacked by the mechanics of the human body.ā
Photographer
Matt Cardy/Getty
This article appeared in print under the headline āOpen-head surgeryā
