The above video is that of a robot. Not a human dressed up as a robot, as it may seem. Created by Actroid company Kokoro and professor at Osaka University Hiroshi Ishiguro, and modeled after Associate Professor Henrik Scharfe of Aalborg University in Denmark, the robot seen in the video is a Geminoid DK, part of the Geminoid series of realistic androids. The reason why the robot’s movements and expressions seem so realistic is because they are controlled by an operator who uses a motion-capture and facial-tracking system.
The supposed point of the realistic androids is study “emotional affordances” in human-robot interaction, as well as to study the perception of robots between different cultures, though we can all pretty easily see through that, can’t we?
(IEEE Spectrum via Geeks are Sexy)
