It’s a slightly animatronic mannequin. They’re so garbage. This is what they brought to CES to show off, like they’re proud of it. Tickle Me Elmo was more life-like.
This is absolutely pathetic. Love the way they have no idea what to do with their arms, but desperately try to do something anyway, at a glacial pace, I assume because any faster could throw them off-balance… And they just end up stuck in the most awkward, unnatural poses anyway.
Right before the AI boom really started to take off there was a robot “companion” named Moxie that I thought struck exactly the right balance - it was nowhere near the uncanny valley, staying firmly on the cute robot side, and it used a projected cartoon face that was simple but expressive. Unfortunately the company’s timing was rather poor, they went out of business right before the AI back end would have been able to make full use of an avatar like this. I’d love to see another version of this approach.
I don’t know, Moxie feels like a DreamWorks character popped inside of a plastic casing. Especially with that image, it comes across like a render or a movie character than a real thing.
IMO there’s a bit of a mistake in trying to have human faces on robots. Not only do you then have to contend with the uncanny valley, but you don’t really need those to convey the same thing. Pose and things like that work equally as well.
We don’t have people walking around trying to put human faces on cats and dogs, but we can understand them well enough all the same.
Yup. IIRC they paid the movie’s producers for the product placement, and then the company went under before the movie’s release date. So it ended up advertising a defunct product. But at least it fit perfectly into the movie’s plot.
You really need to see just how bad these things are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJlxkLawZrw
It’s a slightly animatronic mannequin. They’re so garbage. This is what they brought to CES to show off, like they’re proud of it. Tickle Me Elmo was more life-like.
This is absolutely pathetic. Love the way they have no idea what to do with their arms, but desperately try to do something anyway, at a glacial pace, I assume because any faster could throw them off-balance… And they just end up stuck in the most awkward, unnatural poses anyway.
Right before the AI boom really started to take off there was a robot “companion” named Moxie that I thought struck exactly the right balance - it was nowhere near the uncanny valley, staying firmly on the cute robot side, and it used a projected cartoon face that was simple but expressive. Unfortunately the company’s timing was rather poor, they went out of business right before the AI back end would have been able to make full use of an avatar like this. I’d love to see another version of this approach.
I don’t know, Moxie feels like a DreamWorks character popped inside of a plastic casing. Especially with that image, it comes across like a render or a movie character than a real thing.
Personally, I’m more partial to robots that don’t have a human-like face at all. Like Jibo, whose “face” was a simple flat circle on a screen. Cosmo might be the upper end, where it has two “eyes” (squares) on a screen, but no other features.
IMO there’s a bit of a mistake in trying to have human faces on robots. Not only do you then have to contend with the uncanny valley, but you don’t really need those to convey the same thing. Pose and things like that work equally as well.
We don’t have people walking around trying to put human faces on cats and dogs, but we can understand them well enough all the same.
Here’s an unboxing video, this timestamp skips straight to Moxie coming online. Moxie is a real product. And the video is from three years ago, before convincing video generation AI was a thing, in case that was a concern.
Moxie does pose as well, its various joints are motorized. The arms exist entirely to point and gesticulate, they don’t have grippers.
They do have faces, though. Dogs literally developed additional facial muscles compared to wolves apparently as a means of improving their communication with human companions. Moxie’s face isn’t a human face, it’s highly stylized.
Cat girls after reading your comment: “Shooketh, niao”
It’s the robot from M3GAN 2.0?
Yup. IIRC they paid the movie’s producers for the product placement, and then the company went under before the movie’s release date. So it ended up advertising a defunct product. But at least it fit perfectly into the movie’s plot.