Not a Fantasy Anymore. Perm Citizens Are Now Selling Human-Like Robots
Imagine the exact copy of Michael Jordan selling basketball uniform, and Alexander Pushkin reading his own verses in the museum? And it is not a fantasy any more. The Perm developer company began to sell roboticcompanionsRobo C. Upon the customer’s request, the robot can obtain appearance of any person, the tvbrics.com correspondent reports with the reference to thebell.io.
Robo C can imitate human emotions and reproduce 600 options of human micro expressions –move eyes, eyebrows, lips. Its artificial intelligence allows it to answer questions and keep up a conversation. What is more, this robot can simulate the speech of a particular person, using favorite phrases and thewords peculiar to the "original" person.
The company suggests using this robot as a consultant, an administrator, a museum employee, as well as a house assistant, an interlocutor or a personal adviser.
"Everyone can order a robot with any appearance for professional or private use,"says the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Promobot Alexey Yuzhakov. "Thereby, we are opening the huge market in service, education, and entertainment industry."
The company presented a human-like robot in April 2019. They spent one and a half years and 6.5 million rubles on designing and engineering.
Human-like robots are already in demand. One android was purchased for robotics exhibitions, another will communicate with medical students and act as a patient whose case they should diagnose.
A customer can order a robot with a unique face or choosea face according to the available developer’s templates.
However, at the same time,ethical questions arise. The Bell reports that once a customer asked the company to make a copy of his lost son.
"In orderto fill emptiness in his heart, he addressed us to create his copy — a face on the basis of the available technology, and a neural network for communication based on his son’s phrases",said the Development Director of the company Oleg Kivokurtsev.
According to him, ethical aspect makes the company hesitate, whether they should or shouldn’t take this order.
What is more, the company provides robots with several options: they can only have a head, or a head and a part of a body (anyway, only their head is mobile). Besides, the robot can have a screen displaying various information on its chest.
Depending on request, the cost of the device varies from 1.2 million to 3 million rubles, and the period of order executionlasts from two to three months.
Earlier it was reported that one thousand of Russian service Promobots will go to Switzerland in 2019-2024. The Perm company and the Swiss signed the agreement worth 18.5 million euros.
Though these robots do not look likea human being, they can recognize speech and faces, answer questions, move, avoid collisions when moving,display information on their own screens, and interact with other systems and services.
Finally, the company has already sold about 500 different android robotsinto 35 countries. In Russia they were purchased by Moscow Metro, Sberbank, and a number ofmunicipal service offices.