Zeno: real robot boy
Associated PressDavid Hanson's company wants to bring you a lifelike social companion. Little Zeno, on shelves by 2010, is just a start.
Published September 18, 2007
RICHARDSON, Texas
David Hanson has two little Zenos to care for these days.
There's his 18-month-old son Zeno, who prattles and smiles as he bounds through his father's cramped office.
Then there's the robotic Zeno. It can't speak or walk yet, but has blinking eyes that can track people and a face that captivates with a range of expressions.
At 17 inches tall and 6 pounds, the artificial Zeno is the culmination of five years of work by Hanson and a small group of engineers, designers and programmers at his company, Hanson Robotics. They believe there's an emerging business in the design and sale of lifelike robotic companions, or social robots. And they showed off the robot boy to students in grades 3 through 12 at the Wired NextFest technology conference last week in Los Angeles.
Unlike clearly artificial robotic toys, Hanson says he envisions Zeno as an interactive learning companion, a synthetic pal that can engage in conversation and convey human emotion through a face made of a skinlike, patented material Hanson calls frubber.
"It's a representation of robotics as a character animation medium, one that is intelligent," he says. "It sees you and recognizes your face. It learns your name and can build a relationship with you."
It's no coincidence if the concept sounds like a science-fiction movie.
Hanson said he was inspired by, and is aiming for, the same sort of realism found in the book Supertoys Last All Summer Long, by Brian Aldiss. Aldiss' story of troubled robot boy David and his quest for the love of his flesh-and-blood parents was the source for Steven Spielberg's film Artificial Intelligence: AI.
He plans to make Zenos available for sale within three years for $200 to $300.
Until then, Hanson, 37, makes a living selling and renting pricey, lifelike robotic heads. His company offers models that look like Albert Einstein, a pirate and a rocker, complete with spiky hair and sunglasses. They cost tens of thousands of dollars and can be customized to look like anyone, Hanson said.
The company, which has yet to break even, was also buoyed by a $1.5-million grant from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund last October. The fund was created by Gov. Rick Perry in 2005.
Hanson concedes it's going to be at least 15 years before robot builders can approach anything like what seems to be possible in movies.
Robotics, Hanson believes, should be about artistic expression, a creative medium akin to sculpting or painting. But convincing people that robots should look like people remains a challenge robot experts call the "uncanny valley." The theory posits that humans have a positive psychological reaction to robots that look somewhat like humans, but that robots made to look very realistic end up seeming grotesque.
"Nobody complains that Bernini's sculptures are too darn real, right? Or that Norman Rockwell's paintings are too creepy," Hanson said. "Well, robots can seem real and be loved too."