Why Didn't Anyone Tell Me This Was An Option?!!?

Aww, look! It's a... really creepy robot baby!

Just when you thought it couldn't get weirder... "Japanese researchers created a baby robot designed to simulate the behavior and development of a real infant in an effort to better understand how humans grow up.

Named Noby, short for "nine-month-old baby," it has 600 sensors across its body to feel touch, cameras and microphones fitted into its head for vision and hearing and is hooked up to a powerful computer.
"You can load your software into the robot, watch how it reacts to human actions and its surroundings and compare it with the behavior of real children," Kuniyoshi told AFP Tuesday. "Human beings learn and develop various functions in the process of growing up, but the exact mechanism is yet to be explained," it said."

Damn, if only I had know about this BEFORE we got pregnant!!! My in-laws are even in Japan and could probably even pick one up in some vending machine right next to one selling used school girl panties.

Kidding aside for a brief moment... I (in my admittedly limited knowledge of robot programming) fail to see how a robot baby will "simulate the behavior and development of a real infant in an effort to better understand how humans grow up." I mean, isn't it "garbage in, garbage out?" Don't the programmers have to already have a thorough understanding of the "behavior and development" of a real infant so that they can program this to act like one? Being a robot, isn't it impossible for it to actually "grow up?" Won't people treat it differently than a real baby, because face it, it's like some freakish love child of Chucky and an iMac, and therefor none of the data will have any real meaning at all?

It says it has microphones, but what about speakers so it can burst out crying at inconvenient times, food intake/storage and output areas so it can eat, poop, pee and upchuck non-stop, and thanks to the speakers, let you know when it needs to do any of that at maximum volume? Does it throw a fit for the latest Hello Kitty/Powder Puff Girls toy? Will it point to strangers and/or family members and say embarrassing things about them during a sudden silence in the room? Are some of the robot babies gay? Do its eyes glow red when it gets mad? Why does it look like even all the robot babies are boys? Will it swear in inappropriate situations? If it gets a virus, will you have to give up your opening night opera tickets and sit up all night with it singing obnoxious songs? These are serious, scientific questions that I think need to be answered!



Has ANYONE in Japan EVER watched a horror movie? Because you know this can't end well. I give it six months before they lose funding and wind up selling them to pedophiles as sex toys... and they develop AI and start taking over the world.

Robot Baby article link