Hiroshi Ishiguro, robotics researcher, discusses building companion robots and androids to study human likeness, social interaction, and what it means to be human.
Ishiguro builds robots intended for everyday settings and uses their design to explore human appearance, behavior, and interaction. He combines robotics with psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy, describing this technology development as a way to investigate human nature.
After finding mechanical-looking robots raised questions about their appeal, Ishiguro began making androids with humanlike looks and behavior. People wanted longer conversations than the available AI could support, so he added teleoperation. He points to Japanese interest in daily-life robot applications, a strong industrial robotics base, and cultural attitudes as factors behind early android work in Japan.
Ishiguro describes the uncanny valley as a rough idea: mismatches between a humanlike face and less natural movement can make a robot seem unsettling. He says restricting a robot to a particular setting and purpose can make it harder to distinguish from a person. Geminoid F was designed with expressive faces and fewer actuators, bringing its cost to about $100,000; he also says video misses the eye contact and other sensory cues of meeting an android in person.
People can form emotional bonds with robots and animals by attributing minds and feelings to them, Ishiguro argues. He says human identity cannot be pinned to bodily features alone and may become harder to define as people adopt artificial organs and machines. For him, social acceptance and interaction help determine whether an artificial being is treated as human.
Ishiguro wants to work with AI researchers on intelligence expressed through conversation and shared activity, rather than only sophisticated computation. He imagines androids as a future medium for conveying a person's presence remotely, potentially extending communication beyond screens and phones. He suggests starting with limited applications, such as museums, and learning from how people respond.
Briefs summarise talks and interviews; timestamps open the video at that moment. Claims in a talk are the speaker's own.
Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro, robotics professor at Osaka University and researcher at ATR, discusses how androids can help people connect across distance and what building them reveals about human identity.
Robotics professor Hiroshi Ishiguro discusses humanlike robots, telepresence, and what they reveal about human identity at a Wheeler Centre event in Melbourne.
Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, a robotics researcher, discusses how robotic avatars can help us study human behavior and bring a human presence to work, communication, and care.
Hiroshi Ishiguro, a robotics researcher, discusses identity, emotion, and embodiment through his Geminoid android at an Ars Electronica symposium.
Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, robotics researcher at Osaka University, discusses how androids can help researchers study human behavior and identity, with Heather Knight at Japan Society in New York.
Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University discusses androids, robotics, and human identity at Stellenbosch University, with audience participation and robot demonstrations.
