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Meet Erica, the laughing robot designed to make AI more empathetic
source link: https://www.fastcompany.com/90791737/meet-erica-the-laughing-robot-designed-to-make-ai-more-empathic
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Meet Erica, the laughing robot designed to make AI more empathic
The humanoid robot can detect when you’re laughing, decide whether to laugh in return, and choose to reciprocate with either a chuckle or a giggle. Creepy or ingenious?
It’s the weekend, and you decide to pay a visit to your grandma, who lives alone. When you arrive, however, you realize she has another visitor, and you hear through the door the two of them laughing. You don’t make anything of it until you walk in and find that the visitor, sitting across the dining table from grandma, is a humanoid robot—and it’s laughing at your grandma’s joke.
![02-90791737-laughing-robot.jpg](https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_auto:best,f_auto/wp-cms/uploads/2022/09/02-90791737-laughing-robot.jpg)
![01-90791737-laughing-robot.jpg](https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_auto:best,f_auto/wp-cms/uploads/2022/09/01-90791737-laughing-robot.jpg)
Think of a robot today and you will likely associate it with tedious tasks, like stacking heavy boxes in a warehouse, harvesting vegetables on a vertical farm, or even unclogging your pipes. But with a domestic robot industry that’s projected to reach $19 billion by 2027, more complex, empathic robots have entered the picture. ElliQ, for instance, is designed to tackle loneliness among the elderly, and Ollie’s creators claim it can stimulate patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s.
![04-90791737-laughing-robot.jpg](https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_auto:best,f_auto/wp-cms/uploads/2022/09/04-90791737-laughing-robot.jpg)
The scientists then trained the algorithm to distinguish the basic characteristics of each type of laugh—like a quieter titter when you’re being polite—in order to mirror them accordingly. “If you assume every laugh is equal, you’re going to respond to everything, but if you respond to nothing, it’s also embarrassing,” says Lala. “If a robot can distinguish between the two, it’s a useful finding.”
![03-90791737-laughing-robot.jpg](https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_auto:best,f_auto/wp-cms/uploads/2022/09/03-90791737-laughing-robot.jpg)
It’s worth noting that none of this has anything to do with actual humor. Erica cannot discern your corny dad joke from your witty pun. At least not yet. The algorithm wasn’t trained to process the meaning of words, just laughs. “Erica doesn’t understand the kind of sense of humor, but if she reacts to the user’s laugh, maybe the user feels [like] she understands something,” says Koji Inoue, the lead author of the study.
Next up, the team wants to add different kinds of laughs to Erica’s portfolio and connect her capacity to process language with her ability to laugh accordingly, so she could decide what’s funny and what isn’t based on the meaning of the words. “Our target is human-like interaction,” says Inoue. A fully conversational robot with a silly sense of humor may not be ready in time for your grandma to give it a whirl, but then wait a few decades, and you may find your own self at that dining table, cracking jokes with a robot named Erica.
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