PaigeHDESMA9: Event 3---Fowler Lecture

For my third event that I attended, I went to a lecture in Fowler. This lecture was given by Masa Jazbec who is a researcher and specialist of robots and androids in Japan. I thought this lecture was very interesting because she went over details about Japan. First, she went over the three different classifications the society could consider these new machines/robots/androids in order to give them a name. The three categories consist of: Androids, Geminoids, and Humanoids. Jazbec said that Geminoids are copies of actual human beings, sort of like a clone. Geminoids are the closest to actually living and breathing humans. Professor Ishiguro created a Geminoid prototype of himself as well. I found this very interesting in the fact that this robot looked exactly like him. This robot had the facia hair, the glasses, and even the facial expressions to go along with it.
Masa Jazbeck also talked about Android science. Through android science, we can create these Geminoids by integrating robotics and science. This cognitive science allows the robots to look similar to humans by the hair, skin, facial expressions, etc. The interesting part to me, is that the robots actual have the ability to learn and get smarter as time goes on. The situation that we are at hand with is how we categorize them in our society.
Most people are not fulling willing to let robots have a place in society. Jazbec explains that the average person in society is not prepared to accept these machines in our daily routines, because there is still some friction between the relationship of humans and robots. At the end of the lecture there was an interesting question asked directed towards Masa. The question was, if she sees robots as robots? The interesting and intriguing part of her response was that she has adapted to them. This response made me wonder if we as a society were surrounded by robots everyday, would we adapt too?
I related this to what we are learning about by art and robotics. This relates to the art work put into constructing these robots. For example, the Geminoids are created by sculpting the face, eyes, hair, etc. Also, the robotics and technology put into creating these machines is unbelievable.