Meet the futuristic robot that mimics humans- Capable of independent thought, emotion...
Meet the futuristic robot that mimics humans
Meet Bina48, the robot who can tell jokes, recite poetry
and mimic humans.
Written by Aleesha Matharu | New Delhi | Published on:March 24, 2015 1:20 pm
Would you want your consciousness to live on, long after
your physical body is exhausted? Or have a ‘mind clone’ sit in on meetings as
you take the day off? Is that even possible?
Meet Bina48, the robot who can tell jokes, recite poetry
and mimic humans. One of the most sophisticated robots ever built, capable of
independent thought, emotion, Bina48 is modelled on Bina Aspen, wife of Martine
Rothblatt — the CEO of biotech outfit United Therapeutics.
A vision of a future where we all have such “mind clones”
is what futurist 60-year-old Rothblatt shared on March 15 with several thousand
attendees during the third day of the annual tech festival South by Southwest
(SXSW 2015) in Austin, Texas.
How do you create a cyber-human?
The first step is creating what Rothblatt calls a “mind
file” — a digital record that encapsulates your thoughts, mannerisms and more.
And if you have a Facebook profile, says Rothblatt, your mind file is well
underway.
How long did it take to create Bina48?
The flesh-and-blood Bina was interviewed for more than 20
hours, a conversation which touched upon topics throughout her childhood and
her career. That conversation was then transcribed and uploaded to an
artificial intelligence database.
Bina48’s hardware was created by robot designer David
Hanson over the course of three years for $125,000. She has a “character
engine” — software that tries its best to imbue her with a more cohesive view
of the world, with logic and motive.
The “mind clone” has a head and torso that looks eerily
like the real-life Bina. Her skin is made of a material called “frubber” that,
with the help of 30 motors underneath it, allows her to frown, smile and look a
bit confused.
Bina48 has, in fact, even been interviewed by The New
York Times. When asked by NYT, “What is it like to be a robot?”, she said, “Um,
I have some thoughts on that. Even if I appear clueless, perhaps I’m not. You
can see through the strange shadow self, my future self. The self in the future
where I’m truly awakened. And so in a sense this robot, me, I am just a
portal.”
When Bina’s mortal self dies, Rothblatt said the robot
version of her wife will live on, making it possible for “our identity to begin
to transcend our bodies”, truly making humans immortal.
Who is Rothblatt?
She is a transgender activist and a trans-humanist
philosopher who believes technology will one day grant humans eternal life.
Recently, Forbes named her as the highest-paid female CEO
in the US based on the $38 million she earns a year.
Her daughter’s rare lung disease is what spurred her to
start United Therapeutics and develop an oral medication that changed the lives
of thousands of patients.
Rothblatt is also working with Craig Venter, who helped
sequence the human genome, to use organs from genetically-modified pigs for
human organ transplants to create a never-ending supply.
Rothblatt founded a religion, the Terasem Movement, which
puts together her cultural Judaism, Zen-like yoga and a deep belief in
technology. One of the four founding beliefs: “Death is optional”.
She was the force behind SiriusXM radio, a worldwide
satellite radio, and wrote the books Virtually Human and The Apartheid of Sex.
Virtually Human has been described by The Washington Post
as “a big-think manifesto on the rights of yet-to-be-created cyber-humans, who
might one day be uploaded with all of your thoughts, dreams, memories and
online activity and live for eternity as a sort-of you”.
According to Rothblatt, robots in the future will have
constitutional rights and “cyber psychiatrists” who will ease their anxiety
about not being completely human.
We are living in a world where all of your life is
captured. There is work going on at Amazon, Google, and Apple that is Mindware.
It is software designed to process and recreate all of these inputs to create a
consciousness
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