"The Intimate Machine" premiered October 22, 2002.

				Friendly Characters Animated characters can see, hear and react to computer users, making everyday interactions with computers easier, more efficient and fun.
		Select text to jump ahead in the clip: ALDA: It was six years ago that I had my first encounter with a sociable computer, or at least one that tried to be sociable. How does that feel? Now, these wires go from the gloves... down my back? Down your back and into the computer. And this eye tracker... ALDA: I was visiting MIT's Media Lab, a visit which in those days often involved getting rigged up in elaborate outfits designed to keep track of what I was doing-- and in this case, where I was looking. ALDA: Oh, my God, look at my eye on that monitor. ALDA: The gloves were to allow the machine to follow my gestures. ALDA: Oh, it speaks Italian. ALDA: The idea of all this was to allow me to gesture to my computer. ALDA: I actually gesture at my computer quite a bit, but the computer doesn't respond. In that regard, I can understand how it would be good to have gestures understood by the computer, but why are you engaged in this? Why do you want the computer to read my gestures? Because we do gesture. We gesture at computers, we gesture at each other, like I'm doing right now. We even gesture when we talk on the telephone. So yeah, there you are. You're saying to your computer, "Not that, the... I told you..." But mostly it's like this. I go like that. And it still doesn't respond. No, it doesn't-- it doesn't understand. It's a slow computer. Well, we'd like to speed it up a little bit. So the idea is that you try to talk to Gandalf... ALDA: The Media Lab is famous for its demos-- demonstrations of technology that is still far from perfected, but gives us a glimpse of the possible. The idea here was for a character I could converse with. COMPUTER VOICE: Hello, I am Gandalf, your guide to the galaxy. ( loudly ): Take me to Mars. Why not? ALDA: I love that eye action. Good-bye. No, wait, where are you going? Wait, are you going to leave me out here in space? ALDA: Gandalf had trouble recognizing my speech, let alone my gestures. ALDA: Tell me about Mars. GANDALF: Mars has two moons. Tell me more. Mars is 6,000 kilometers in diameter. ALDA: But he did have a cute personality. Mars is a cool planet. ALDA: You said it. Uh, what was the point of wearing all of this? What did that do? How did that change anything? So, we talked earlier about the interaction of verbal and nonverbal behavior. You saw an example of that. He knows, Gandalf knows when you're looking at him, and he knows when you're looking at the screen. And when you looked at the screen, he looked at the screen, too, just to be friendly. And when you looked at him, he got ready to answer a question, or to interact with you. When you looked away, he took a powder. Yeah. Did my making gestures change the way... I didn't see a change in the way he answered questions when I used my hands. In the future, he'll understand the content of your gestures. For the moment, what he understands is that you're speaking. The ways we've thought of computers up until now has sort of kept computers in the box, and the way you're thinking of computers is giving them a chance to get out of the box by thinking of them more as people. I mean, you're... you're giving... you're making them... listen and feel and hear and see like people, so then... then they can be all over the place. They don't have to be only accessed by a keyboard and a mouse. Absolutely, that's the point. They should be able to be social actors-- actors in our social world. They're not going to be people, because they're not people, and we don't want to think that they're people, ultimately. I don't. But they might be easier to use if they... if they got information from us the way other people do. Absolutely-- that's the point. ALDA: Today, Gandalf has retired, to be replaced by Rea, whose expertise is much more down to earth. I'm starting up her brains. It takes couple of minutes. She's in a deep sleep. ALDA: This is Gandalf's granddaughter? MAN: That's right, uh-huh. We've made a number of advances over the years. She does full gesture and speech generation. So when she has something to say, she actually decides whether she should put it into her speech or her hand gestures or both. So she's more natural that way in interacting with her. She recognizes everything... well, not everything you say, but everything you say about real estate. ( laughing ) She's got a one-track mind. BICKMORE: That's right, that's right, uh-huh. Her grandfather needed me to get all duded up in an outfit-- gloves on my hands and a helmet on. She doesn't need that. She doesn't need that, because she has two cameras up here which recognize the position of your head and hands in space, and from that she can determine where you're standing, so she can gaze as you move around and look at you. She can recognize... REA: Hello. If you're gesturing... Hello, hi. How are you doing? I'm pretty well. Well... Pardon me? Have you been in the Media Lab before? Yes, I have. Cool. Cool. They are doing some crazy things in here. ALDA: Yeah, I see... ALDA: Tim and Justine have found that people tend to trust computer characters more if they chit-chat before getting down to business. ( laughter ) What did she say? ALDA: But Rea's patience with me quickly runs out. ALDA: She said good-bye? Yeah, I have never seen her do that before. Look, I... I... listen. I swear to God, I really think it's cool. ( Cassell laughing ) ALDA: So Tim resets Rea's brain and we try again. Hello. ALDA: Hello. How do you like Boston? Oh, I like Boston. Well... What? Don't go. No, no! ( laughter ) I want to buy a house. What? What? How about this weather? ( Cassell laughing ) Yeah, it's cool. ALDA: Uh, do you sell houses or anything? Rea, real estate. ( Cassell laughing ) Does that strike a chord? ALDA: This is a best example of soft sell I've ever seen. CASSELL: I know. She figures if you don't want to buy, she doesn't want to push you. I think she just sees in me that I'm not really serious. I think so. Look at her, she looks sad. ALDA: She really does. ALDA: But finally, Rea gets down to business. REA: It has one bedroom, one bathroom, one living room, one kitchen. Could I see the kitchen? ALDA: In theory, she's listening to what I'm saying with both my voice and my hands. ALDA: Where is the living room? ALDA: And then figuring out how to respond-- again with both voice and gestures. The living room is downstairs across from the kitchen. Uh-huh. Could I see the living room? REA: Were you talking to me? Yes, I was. I'm sorry, I did not quite catch that. That's okay. ALDA: Like Gandalf before her, Rea's dependent on an off-the-shelf speech recognition system, which is having trouble understanding me. ( slowly ): Show me the living room. Ah, here we go. ( Cassell and Bickmore laughing ) Ah, nice. ALDA: Nice TV set there. Tell me about the living room. I am sorry, I did not quite catch that. I bet your granddad was Gandalf. ( Cassell laughing ) You have this remarkable effect on her, and I think it's actually because you have a low- pitched voice. I would suggest that you watch Tim interacting with her. Sure, okay, sure. Let me see what I have available. ALDA: Rea has had months of practice recognizing Tim's speech, so their interaction goes much more smoothly. One living room, one kitchen. What can I tell you about those rooms? Tell me about the house. Once we get recognized speech from this commercial recognition system, we're understanding what the person is saying, and then Rea, in real time, as you're having this conversation, is using her intelligence to decide what an appropriate response would be, to formulate that response in English, and also to know how to use her body. And that had never been done before. BICKMORE: Where is the bedroom? The bedroom is upstairs. ALDA: Justine hopes that Rea will evolve into virtual characters that could make all sorts of interactions with the computer easier and more natural. Yes, there is a beautiful garden with a gazebo. ALDA: She's already developing a fitness instructor that could keep an eye on you as you work out at home, a tutor for long-distance learning and Sam, a virtual playmate for children. CASSELL: When Geneva starts to play, Sam is all about eliciting from her the best of her language, the best of her storytelling, and then giving her back what she needs to be encouraged, to be sophisticated in her language use and to be actually focused on the kinds of language use that are going to help her as she goes through school. So Sam hears her speaking, not only understands... the story part of it, but understands what she means and picks out the best parts of her storytelling and encourages that? That sounds like an awful lot for Sam to know. Right, and Sam doesn't do any of that. ( both laughing ) Who does that? Tune back in in a couple of years when we can do that. ( laughing ) ALDA: What Sam can do now is share the Magic Tower with Geneva... SAM: Cool! Okay, my turn. ALDA: Sam can even share toys across the boundary that divides the real and virtual worlds. ALDA: How does Sam know what she just did? CASSELL: There are sensors in the bottoms of the toys and sensors in the Magic Tower, and that's what lets Sam know whether one toy is in there or two toys. SAM: Long ago there was a fairy, an old man and a wolf... ALDA: Sam's background is generated by a video camera in Geneva's world, so even the room is shared between them. SAM: ...little voice crying from outside. "Help, I'm a fairy who has lost her wings." ALDA: Sam is happy to tell his own stories, or to listen when it's Geneva's turn, prompting her if she pauses. But... SAM: What happens next? She kept falling off the branch... Hmm! So she took the watering can and she poured it on each of her seeds. She's just... totally inspired by this. Would she be that... that active in her storytelling if she wasn't prompted by Sam? That's exactly what we looked at. So we ran a big long study in a local school, and we had four conditions: one kid playing alone without Sam, two kids playing with each other but without Sam, one kid with Sam and two kids with Sam. And what we find is that without Sam, they stall. They hum, they look up at the ceiling, and that's it, they don't tell. And one kid with Sam, even with this minimal feedback, and the fact that she knows that when she's finished, Sam is going to take a turn, seems to inspire children to be really creative. GENEVA: She gave the boy two, a radish and a lemon, and carefully... SAM: Then what happens? Picked them up... Hmm! And they put them down. ALDA: It's very interesting. She's moving these figures around the house, and every time she puts it in a new room, she looks up at Sam and gets a reaction. CASSELL: Right. One of the reasons that I launched this project was in response to what I saw as a series of games that talked at children-- computer games or other games that just bombarded the kid with images and noise. And I wanted something that listened and that evoked real physical play in the physical world, that got kids to move around. ALDA: Geneva, how much fun is Sam as a playmate? Do you like playing with Sam? Yeah. What do you like about Sam? Because he listens, and he says what happens next and stuff. Then he goes upstairs. ALDA: While Sam encourages his playmates to make up stories, his own are all prerecorded. SAM: Okay, my turn. Two kids walked up the stairs... ALDA: But another character in Justine's lab-- a lot less wholesome-looking than Sam-- is able to put together sentences on the fly. If you want it to speak, you just have to type something. MAN: In a way, Beat actually is sort of like text to speech, except that it's not only producing the speech; it's producing the gesture that goes along with the speech. So it takes as input text and outputs an animation script that a character can execute. This is both good news and bad news. Okay, well, that's really interesting. He goes, "This is both good news and bad news." Which is, by the way, exactly what you did. What I did-- I know. But how did he... Wait a minute. He got it from "both," huh? No, he... How did he know that there was this and this? Right. Because one of the things that it knows about the world is that there are sets of things in which one stands in contrast to the other. So we'll let you type in a bunch of other sentences that have contrasts in them, and you'll see that it'll always understand, if it has that knowledge in its database. Sometimes I like blue things, and sometimes I like red things. ( both laugh ) What was that? Why did he point towards the truck? I mean, he knows it's blue. Oh wait, wait-- the truck is blue, but he pointed to that when he said red. Let me just hear that again. I think it was reminding you that he actually likes blue better. Sometimes I like blue things, and sometimes I like red things. Now, why did he do it differently the second time? Don't ask me. I didn't invent it. Now I'm going to tell you. It's the Socratic method. ( both laugh ) I'm seeing if that's in you somewhere, but since it isn't, I'll tell you. So, in fact, not only does this system have a model of the world; it also has something else that we have, which is a model of what we've said previously, and he knows that he already said "blue thing," so there's no need to gesture to it again. You share it now. ALDA: Beat also knows a little about where he's standing. VILJHALMSSON: He actually knows what the scene looks like. I was just visiting the Media Lab. So he knows where the Media Lab is and is able to point at it. ALDA: Let's see how he says a new sentence mentioning the lab. Soon the Media Lab will have another building attached to it. There's just a little half gesture toward it. Exactly, and that half gesture, he's gesturing when he's saying the new thing-- another building attached to it-- because that catches your interest and pulls you to the contentful part of the sentence. Let me see what he does if I let him say it again. He probably won't make that same gesture, will he? Soon the Media Lab will have another building attached to it. You see? It's almost in response to the unspoken question, "What was that you said?" because he's just telling you the words. Exactly, yep. If I do it again, will he give me a look like "I told you already"? He'll start rolling his eyes. I really like the "automated actor." ALDA: Giving a cartoon character the ability to interpret typed speech as if he understands it may be useful to animators, but it isn't yet a threat to the acting profession. ...a lot easier than dealing with a real actor. CASSELL: That's you he's pointing at. And what we did to do this was, he already knows that in his world is this building called the Media Lab, he's got a blue truck. He knows that he's a so-called actor. Hannes just went in and stuck another object into his world-- an object called Alan Alda equals actor. And a real one. And a real one. ALDA: Well, if I'm going to be just another object in Beat's little world, at least I want better billing than his truck. Alan Alda is a real actor, and a great one. CASSELL: Ooh... I think this is a wonderful program. Yeah, yeah, you want to take it home. I think this gives you confidence.

				Alpha Wolf Researchers build artificial intelligence software modeled on the canine mind.
		Select text to jump ahead in the clip: Good boy, Sydney. ALDA: Bruce Blumberg loves dogs, especially his silky terrier, Sydney. And dogs have long inspired Bruce's efforts to make computers more sociable. Hello, Silas. ALDA: Silas, for instance, another of Bruce's dogs, once lived happily in a room at the Media Lab. Where's he going? Come here. ALDA: Although only a virtual dog, he'd been trained to respond to the gestures of the people who entered his life. Sit. Sit. Oh, wow, look at that. Sometimes he'll respond to your gestures, and sometimes he won't. Will he beg? Yeah, put your both hands over your head. Come on. Whoa, whoa. BLUMBERG: Now, sometimes Silas will do what he wants. So right now, I think he's heading off to get a ball, because he figures... Here he is, here he is. Give me the ball, give me the ball. Okay, okay, I'll throw the ball for him. ALDA: Several years and several thousands of lines of computer code later, Silas left his cramped little room and grew up to become Duncan, a sheep dog, with an entire Scottish estate to roam around on and a flock of virtual, and rather flighty, sheep to look after. ( virtual sheep baaing ) Away. ALDA: Bruce is trying to train Duncan much as he would his real dog. BLUMBERG: When I tell him "away," for example, he understands that command, but then it's up to his own intelligence in order to figure out how far away from the sheep to go, how to avoid the obstacles that he sees, very much as if you had a puppy, and the puppy comes with some basic abilities, and then you're training it to use this action to get particular... ALDA: Now, he's got them in kind of a lump over there. BLUMBERG: Yeah, that's good. Maybe I shouldn't do anything. He's doing a great job of herding if I don't do anything. Would you like to try it? Yeah, sure. All right. Away. ALDA: Things start off promisingly. ALDA: Steady. I've lost a sheep here. ALDA: But then Duncan and I seem to go our different ways. Bye. Pay attention. Bye. No. He's just separated the whole herd of sheep. Someone separated the whole herd of sheep. Well, if you don't mind, I'll blame him. Now, this really calls to mind an interesting question. Let's say I got really good at this. ( laughs ) Why? Yeah, why? Why have you gone to all this trouble? Well, the fundamental thing that I'm interested in is sort of the nature of intelligence. What is it that sort of is going on in our brains that allows us to do... sort of have the everyday kind of intelligence that gets us through our day? And that for me, dogs are a perfect model of that, because dogs really have dinky little brains-- their brains are the size of lemons if they're a big dog-- and yet they have the kind of common sense that probably underlies 90% of our behavior. ALDA: Bruce uses a clicker to give Duncan a virtual reward when he does the right thing. Now I'm going to see if I can teach him something. ALDA: Jump. ( clicker clicks ) ALDA: I first wait till he jumps, then say the word "jump" as I reward him with a click. Jump. ( clicker clicks ) ALDA: After several training runs... Jump. ALDA: Will Duncan treat the word as a command? ( clicker clicks ) Cool! He did it, huh? Do it again, do it again. Jump. ( clicker clicks ) Awesome! Nice, huh? You know, you are the... This is a pretty fresh demo, meaning you are the first person outside of the group that's actually trained this dog. Oh, so that must make you feel great that an amateur can do it. That's great, yeah. ( barks ) ALDA: As a graduate sheep dog trainer, my next assignment is tougher-- raising a wolf pup. MAN: All right, so now he's woken up. I'm sorry, I'm laughing like a wolf. Do they laugh? Now what? Try howling for him. ( howls life wolf ) ( virtual wolf howls back ) So he'll howl along with you. And I can wake my pup up, too. ALDA: This cute little black wolf pup is mine to mold, to shape his social interactions with two other pups-- one being raised by Bill Tomlinson, the other by Marc Downie. We can move our pups with a mouse, but the only way to control how they behave is through the sounds that wolves themselves make. ( Alda barking and growling ) TOMLINSON: Barking means play, so you're giving him mixed signals. I'm giving him mixed signals. You are. But just a nice... ( growls ) Oh, okay, I see. ( continues growling ) You know, you're threatening me when you do that. No, seriously, I'm a little frightened of you. ( whimpers ) That's better. ALDA: Just as Duncan the sheep dog models animal intelligence, these wolf pups are intended to model social behavior. BLUMBERG: Wolves are really pretty amazing creatures. A lot of a wolf's day is taken up sort of sorting out the social relationship between it and the other members of the pack. And what we're trying to do here is to understand what sort of things might be going on in the brain to be able to do that. ALDA: Bruce and Bill got their introduction to real wolf behavior through a visit to Wolf Park in Battle Ground Indiana, where several packs of gray wolves live in a seminatural environment. Each pack has a strict social hierarchy, with an alpha wolf at the top. The Media Lab researchers are now trying to model the way wolf pups find their place in that hierarchy. If you have your pup keep coming at me and growling a lot, my pup will learn that you tend to be a more dominant individual and that... it will, in turn, form a submissive relationship with your pup. ALDA: How is your pup going to learn that if you keep giving him sounds to make that go against what he's learning? Well, it exhibits that relationship by the emotional style in which it performs the actions that you ask it to take. So if you tell it to growl at somebody who is always dominant to it, it'll do so, but it'll growl kind of like this, knowing that it's a bad move and that no good can come from growling at this individual. Whereas if you try to growl at somebody who you're traditionally dominant to, it'll run over and do it very confidently. Well, let me see what happens if I don't give up and you don't give up. Okay. I mean, I want to see, can you get to a kind of standoff here? Let me see what happens. ( barks ) There, wake up. ( both howling ) I'm going to go visit you. ( virtual wolf howls ) There, that's a boy. ( both growling ) ALDA: Get up, get up! I was all over you on that one. All right, well, let's try that again. ( both growling ) There, he's getting wimpy again! What is this? Is it me? No, I got a head start, because I beat you down the last time, and so it's just easier this time. One of the problems is, too, that human speech gets recognized as whining, which is an interesting thing. Human speech gets recognized as whining? You know, this has been my problem in life. ( all laughing ) So, um... So I should just keep growling. If you want a dominant wolf, you have to make sure not to talk near the microphone. ( gruffly ): I'll talk like this. Hey, turn around. ( growling fiercely ) I think I won that one. I think I finally got the idea. Now I know how to dominate these guys. Uh-oh, is that... that's the adult. ( whimpering ) ( growling ) Now, what if I tried to get the adult to back down? TOMLINSON: Try growling at her. ( both growling ) It doesn't do any good. Look at this. I'm totally cowed by this. So what they've learned as puppies, that personality will carry on. For instance, if I've been dominant as a puppy, will I be the dominant adult? Exactly-- your adult and my adult will continue to manifest the same relationships that we trained into them. This is fascinating and fun. What do you think it could possibly lead to? Well, I think there are a couple of different ways that I would love to see this work out. Number one, as a tool ultimately for understanding more about social behavior in wolves. You know, I would really... All of the work that we do-- I really want it to inform our understanding of the natural world. Number two is that one of the things that computational systems don't do is social behavior. And social behavior is an important aspect of natural systems, so I'm very interested in what would be the benefits of incorporating social behavior into computational systems. ( howling ) ALDA: These wolf pups are, of course, nothing more than complex software programs. But they're programs that exhibit socially appropriate behavior, emotionally charged memories and the ability to learn from their experiences-- all features that would be desirable in the computer now sitting on your desk, just as long as you don't have to growl at it and have it growl back. TOMLINSON: People are often worried about making computers that are sentient and social, in that, you know, like the Terminator, they're all going to come back and kill us all and it's all going to be this horrible thing. But people all around the world are making entities that are stronger and smarter and more interesting and more capable than us. We have children, and if the process of making computer systems can be more like making children than like building bombs, hopefully it'll make computer systems that don't turn out to be bombs, that turn out to be more like children in the way that they interact with us. And just as I don't grow up to want to kill my parents, hopefully the computer systems will have wonderful interactions with us over the course of our lives. But we're going to have to deal with adolescent computers. ( chuckles ) I mean, that is one of the challenges-- that if you have a system that learns, at some point, it hasn't learned yet, and that is a problem. ( howling ) ALDA: Once our pups grew up, they sat around and howled. ALDA: What are they all howling about? BLUMBERG: Well, actually, real wolves do, um, do this. It's called a rally howl... ( computer wolves howling ) and particularly in the early morning and late afternoon. ALDA: And since my wolf is one of them, it seems appropriate to join in. There they go. ( computer wolves howling ) ( howling ) ( chuckles ) The fade-out. TOMLINSON: And so that's the end of the generation.

				Getting to Know Us Computers monitor users' emotions by measuring heart rate, jaw-tension and other physical cues.
		Select text to jump ahead in the clip: COMPUTER VOICE: Welcome to Ted Selker's office. What is your name? Ted Selker. Hi, Ted Selker. Welcome to your office. I'm going to go on in my office here. You see me going in there. Why don't you try to be Ted Selker? Okay, I'll try to be Ted Selker. ALDA: Ted Selker invented that little button that acts like a mouse in the middle of the keyboard on IBM laptops. Now he's here at the Media Lab, where his mission is to make computers aware of where we are and what we're doing. The door knows there's someone here, and it's not about to be fooled. COMPUTER: Hi, Ted Selker. Wait, Ted Selker is already in his office. Let's see, I guess I'll let you in. Ted Selker is ready to see you. Please come in. SELKER: Walk on in. Thanks, my heels are really cool by now. Thank you. Now, if somebody else comes up, it will do something a little different. Why don't you try to go in again? I'll be... I'll be somebody else. I get to play two parts in this-- that's great. Welcome to Ted Selker's office. What is your name? Ralph. Sorry, I didn't understand you. Please type your name here. ALDA: As usual, I'm having trouble getting the voice recognition system to understand me. You don't have an appointment with Ted Selker, and he is busy right now. He has just started a meeting. If this is important, please knock. Otherwise, please arrange an appointment or leave a message. This is the knocker? Yeah. I will inform him that you are here. Please wait. ( whistling tune ) Sorry, it seems that Ted Selker is very busy. Oh. Hmm. Does he know it's about insurance? ( chuckling ) ALDA: Well, I'll try my luck at making an appointment. Okay. Push "make appointment." No appointment set. Good-bye. Oh. ( laughs ) Uh, do you know if he has any insurance? ALDA: Even after you've made it into Ted Selker's lab, your every move is tracked-- first by a swarm of virtual bees, then by a clown face stepping on your foot. COMPUTER VOICE: Welcome. SELKER: We can measure how heavy a person is and where they're standing, and it's neat because it's only about 20 cents a square foot. So we're able to know these things and we use them to tell, you know, social things, too. But, in other words, if you... If the floor knows how much I weigh, then when I walk around, does it track me by how much I weigh? Yeah. So it knows where I am all the time. So if you lose your keys, we can just tell it, "Hey, where's that guy been?" Oh, my goodness. This... every floor could be made like this. That's a good idea. Huh? I mean, then you really could track everything that you do around the house. Well, you could... like when you're pouring some milk into a recipe, it could know when you've poured a cup in. By the change in weight? Yeah. It's that sensitive? Oh, yeah. ALDA: Intelligent doors, intelligent floors. This is an intelligent bed. That's right. So you're going to put your head underneath this Luxo lamp over here. I bet you've got an eye. Hey, there it is. ALDA: They're all part of Ted Selker's goal of using simple, cheap sensors everywhere around us to keep track of what we're doing and to anticipate our wants. If you kind of blink rapidly... it changed the music. And the reason it changed the music is because it decided you weren't happy. People blink a lot when they're not happy. Now if you just close your eyes for a moment, the system will think you're asleep, and now it goes and it puts z's across the screen. ( laughing ) Now if you open your eyes, the sun rises and the wake-up kind of thing. We'll have you do a couple of other things. Look at the newspaper for a moment, kind of stare at it. ALDA: By picking up my stares, the sensor in the lamp over the bed allows me to browse my e-mail... read a book, even control a video game. I imagine that eventually you're going to find a way to find my eye no matter where I am in the room; I don't have to be lying on a bed. ALDA: The lab has already developed a simple pair of eyeglasses that are able to tell if I'm staring at something... SELKER: And if you look over at this guy... ALDA: Or even somebody. Selker sees the day when people could exchange much more than a glance when they gaze at each other. SELKER: You, being interested in me, gave me your business card. In a party, the person that's paying attention to someone else is giving all those people their cards. I can just imagine that certain people would go home with an awful lot of business cards. ALDA: But first, the glasses would have to be much less obtrusive. Well, you know, they can do what they want with it. It can be reduced to a very, very small size. We use it just to demonstrate that we have something, otherwise it would be too small. There are lots and lots of things that are coming as technology that are going to make it very easy, for almost for nothing, recognize where you are, what you're looking at, how you're looking at it, without even having to wear anything, and without you having to be in any particular place. Clench your jaw for a second for me so I can find the muscle. ALDA: When I was here at the Media Lab six years ago, they were making a start not only on letting computers know what you're doing but even how you're feeling. So go ahead and clench your jaw. See? So that's how I know it's on a good place. ( growling ) Yeah, great. Good job. Whoa, look at that. ALDA: As well as the tension in my jaw, Jennifer Healy measured the clamminess of my hands. Yes, if you've ever noticed when you're nervous, your palms get all sweaty, and that sweat helps the electrical conductivity. I see. ALDA: Another sensor picked up my heart rate. The idea of all this was to let the computer know my emotional state, which, unknown to me, was about to be aroused. ( loud clang ) ( all chuckling ) Oh, look at that. Isn't that cool? Look-- he's off the screen. WOMAN: He went off the scale. ALDA: Now, as anyone who knows me can tell you, the secret to manipulating my emotions is food. All right, all right. I'm just going to think of a saltine. ( women laugh ) I bet you a saltine gets me right back on the... WOMAN: Now you went down. You just dropped all the way down. ALDA: Saltines are not very exciting. Now, watch this. Pasta. ( women laugh ) Oh, a red sauce, a little ricotta on the side, some hot red peppers. ( women laugh ) WOMAN: The peppers went up. Did they? Yeah, I could have told you that. I don't know about the ricotta. That just... ( Alda laughs ) ALDA: The point of having my computer know my emotions is that it could adjust itself to my mood, running faster when I'm bored, or trying another tactic if I'm frustrated. Is there a time limit on this? That would really make my heart rate... ALDA: But back then in 1996, reading my emotions was a cumbersome and intrusive business. Does this mean that at the next stage of this, somebody will have to be hooked up like this in order for the computer to recognize what they're going through? No, eventually, we hope that these sensors will disappear intoyour clothing or into the twiddler itself, into the devices that you're naturally in physical contact with. In fact, people are physically in contact with computers more than with other human beings frequently, so there's a lot more opportunity than you may realize for these sensors to be collecting information. Today you're going to see some of the progress we've made along these lines. One of the things we did, for example, was to take the blood volume pressure sensor that before was this big old clunky thing on your finger, and now you can wear it on your ear. Now, I see that you love to wear earrings, and maybe I can just attach this to your ear. Okay. And this is shining a light through my earlobe to see what the blood flow is in there? Yes, it shines an infrared light. It's called a photoplethysmograph, and it picks up the amount of light going through and the amount changes with your blood flow. It changes with your heartbeat and with stress information. Let's put it on your hand. ALDA: And now the clamminess of my hands can be measured with no wires at all, just a glove equipped with a light-emitting diode. But it's not lighting up yet. No, it's not lighting up. Well, that can... we can debug this together. First, what you can do is try taking some really quick deep breaths. It may take a second to get you to glow. I'm seeing a little teeny bit of glimmer there-- very, very slight. I'm going to pass out from hyperventilation. No, don't do that. Another thing you could do is you could tell me about something significant that's happened to you lately. Something significant. Or something that arouses you, um... Ah... I'm trying to think of something I can tell you on camera. That made him glow, look at that. Look at that! ( laughing ) You didn't actually have to say anything. ( laughing ) This is the hot-pepper phenomenon here. Whoa! Yeah, yeah. This signal doesn't tell people what you're feeling. It just tells one of the dimensions of emotion. So emotions such as anger, fear, excitement, joy, um, strong interest-- those map to a heightened arousal. So this tells us something about the height of that arousal level, but it doesn't tell us if it's a positive or negative response, and that's a key piece of information that we don't seem to be able to get from the surface of the skin right now. There we have to look at the face. Now, this takes a picture of my face and it finds my eyes right away. ALDA: Right now, the system can only tell when I nod, shake my head or blink. So how would this be used? Ordinarily, you wouldn't be looking at a picture of your face; you'd be looking at some other task that you're doing. And it's going to be watching you as you engage with it. It will be looking to see if you're looking at it or not, because if you're not even looking at the screen, why should it be continuing to present you with new information? It could be watching to see if you're looking at it intently, if you're raising your eyebrows, or if you're frowning by pushing them together, you know, lowering them like you're concentrating. These kinds of changes in the muscles around the eyes are part of the information that we want to use to try to determine if you're interested, if you're on the task or not. ALDA: Roz Picard's lab has also developed a mouse that can tell how hard I'm gripping it-- a measure, perhaps, of how annoyed I am with my computer. These images may also give hints at how I'm feeling about my computer, or the program it's running. PICARD: Right now you're sitting in a special chair. This chair contains a pad on the bottom and the back that contains an array of pressure- sensitive sensors, and it senses how... the points of pressure and the intensity of those. So there's a rather unusual portrait of you on the screen right now... This is what I'm sitting on. Yes, this is what you're sitting on. And this is my back? That's your back. So lean back, and we should see more blue lighting up there. Okay, and we see the weight shifting toward the back of the chair. And as you slump down, the pattern shifts that way. The dynamics of this pattern, we think, will give us some clues to things like are you starting to get fidgety, you know, and antsy, or are you on the edge of your seat, literally? ALDA: Sitting on the edge of his seat is six-year-old Adam, testing out the sensor chair as it analyzes his shifting weight and decides on his most likely posture. Graduate student Selene Modo has had scores of children sit in the chair while working at a computer. It's one more way Roz Picard's group is trying to make our computers sensitive to our mood and our interest. COMPUTER VOICE: Hi. Cool. This is cool. ALDA: So by the time Adam is an adult, his computer will know when it's losing him and try harder not to put him to sleep.

				Leonardo the Loveable Robots loaded with artificial intelligence are coming soon to a theatre near you, thanks to MIT researchers and special effects wizard Stan Winston.
		Select text to jump ahead in the clip: Oh, very good-- hello. ALDA: For almost a decade now, we've been following the evolution of an idea that began with "It." I'm sorry, would you just say that again? ALDA: "It" was the creation of MIT researcher and famous robot builder Rodney Brooks. If you got too close, "It" could react with caricatured shock. ( laughing ) It opens its mouth in utter surprise. Yeah, and it raised its eyebrows. It sort of got this reaction of "Oh, what's happening here? Get away from me." ALDA: "It" was one of the first attempts to put a human face on a computer with the express purpose of making it easier for us to relate to it. "It" tries to appear to be a human so that we can interact with it in a way that's like a human. ALDA: "It" soon evolved into a robot head called Kismet, built by a student of Rodney Brooks, Cynthia Breazeal. We first met Kismet three years ago. These robots, like babies, are going to seem especially appealing to us. I mean, we spend a lot of time with babies because we can't... we can't resist them. ALDA: Kismet's expressions-- ranging from boredom... to happiness... to sadness... to interested-- were deliberately over the top. It's very much a caricature to make it that much easier for you to read the robot. So that when it looks happy, it's obviously happy. When it looks sad, it's obviously sad. And you go, "Oh, I did something to upset it. I should do something else to make it happy." So it's really trying to get you involved at this kind of unconscious emotional level. Oh, yeah, look at that. ALDA: Cynthia spent long hours in front of Kismet working on giving it the ability to recognize objects and react with its cartoon-like responses. Oh, there you go. ( toy rattling ) Oh, you don't like it when I take away your toy. ALDA: And her willingness to invest the effort is itself a demonstration of the goal of the research-- to make people want to help their robots, so that robots can more easily learn the ways of humans. You like this toy, too. I take it away. Oh-ho, he's so sad. So sad when I take away your toy. ALDA: Robots learning the ways of humans also happened to be a central theme of a movie then in production. This belonged to Martin, my son. ALDA: In Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence, the teddy bear is a robot. TEDDY: Ahh. ALDA: In the movie, the boy is also a robot. But while he's played by an actor, the teddy bear was created at Stan Winston Studio, which also made the dinosaurs for the Jurassic Park movies. His name is Teddy. Teddy, this is David. Hello, Teddy. Hello, David. David, Teddy is a supertoy. ALDA: Teddy was one of the most lifelike puppets ever made in Hollywood. TEDDY ( threateningly ): I am not a toy. BREAZEAL: So sad when I take away your toy. ALDA: While Kismet was certainly the most expressive robot ever built by computer scientists. So when Cynthia Breazeal was hired as a consultant to A.I. and met Stan Winston, they hatched a plan-- to combine their skills to create the most lifelike and expressive robot ever built. WINSTON: It was probably the most exciting thought concept that had ever come to me in my career. I mean, we have created the most organic-looking and -acting robots ever in the films that we've done, but they don't have any brains. No offense to the puppeteers, but the robot itself doesn't have any brains. And this was a chance to do something that was groundbreaking and historic. ALDA: Oh, my God, look. What? ALDA: Meet Leonardo, making its fist public appearance exclusively for Scientific American Frontiers. LEONARDO: La, la, la. You can make it do that? Or are they making it do that? WINSTON: They're doing it. ( all laughing ) ALDA: Can you do "whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo"? ALDA: Today Leonardo is still brainless. LEONARDO ( slowly ): Whoo, whoo, whoo. WINSTON: Give me a "la-la." La, la, la, la. Whoa, look at that tongue action. ALDA: His 61 different moving parts are controlled by puppeteers. The goal is to replace them with a rack of computers. WINSTON: This is the birth of the first truly artificial intelligence character that will have the ability to emote, that can reach every range of expression, that can hear you and respond to you as an artificial intelligence. It's pretty amazing. What we really are exploring here is social connectedness, social interaction, the human-robot connection. What it is right now is a brand-new instrument that has yet to be learned how to play. Right. It's... we've created a grand piano, but it's never been... this particular character has never been built before, so all of what's happening with him is a learning process. This is, like, the first day anybody's seen it. Puppeteers that are dealing with him right now-- this is a new character, so it's like, "Okay, what things make it do this?" So we have to learn how to use this instrument, and then once we have learned as human beings how to create an expression, how to create a phonetic, how to make it go "whoo," how to make it go "hello," whatever it is, put it all together... Then the computer will know... Exactly. ALDA: It's a few weeks later. His skin and fur back in Hollywood for further primping, Leonardo sits patiently in the Media Lab waiting for Cynthia Breazeal to plug him into his control system. It's the start of another day of Cynthia's translating the skills of Stan Winston's puppeteers into computer code. Of the 61 different movable parts in Leonardo's body, 12 are in his arms alone. BREAZEAL: It gives us a very intuitive physical sense as... you know, as I'm moving Leonardo's arms, to what kind of motions the robot can do well, what's really pushing its limits, and so forth. And I think it will give us additional insight as we write the code to make sure that Leonardo moves in a way that doesn't damage its motors, that doesn't overheat them too fast. ALDA: But making Leonardo move like a living creature rather than a robot isn't enough. Leonardo isn't just a robot. It's a character. BREAZEAL: Character is expressed through the entire body. Often characters have their own little idiosyncrasies, so probably elements of those will be put into Leonardo. We don't know what they are yet. I mean, that's kind of Stan Winston's domain, I think. But anything regarding, I mean, what is the character of Leonardo is going to really be a sort of joint effort between us as well as Stan Winston Studios to try to define: What does this robot sound like when it talks? How does it express? How does it react to things? What is... what is the character of Leonardo? How do you... how do you encode that, really? And how do you encode it in a way that the robot can learn and extend its repertoire over time? ALDA: For Leonardo to know what's going on around it, cameras in its eyes will be able to recognize faces and facial expressions, while microphones in its ears will recognize individual voices and the sounds they're making. And its body will be covered with touch sensors. BREAZEAL: You can imagine people are going to be petting Leonardo-- it's a very lovable little guy. And it should be able to know and respond to that-- to know when it's being touched in a way that it likes, that's good for it; the way when people are touching it that's not good for it, in which case it should recoil, let you know "I don't like the way you're touching me." ALDA: One of the robot's most expressive features is its ears, which can also perform a few tricks not often seen in nature. BREAZEAL: It can do, like, the backstroke, the crawl. ( laughs ) It can wave hello. ( laughs ) You can see all the technology that's gone into creating a robot that is really optimized for expression. The ability of these robots to interact with people in a way that's natural for them, that the way that they want to engage the robot and that they accept the robot, is going to be really critical. And I think, you know, obviously Leonardo is... is trying to push on this idea of not making it look human but kind of petlike, but yet intriguingly anthropomorphic. So like a pet, but perhaps even smarter than a pet. ALDA: With his fur back on, and even with only his mouth able to move, Leonardo is certainly hard to resist. BREAZEAL: When you were in that little interaction, notice how much you were adapting to it. That's what I'm getting at. That's the kernel of the learning interaction I'm trying to capture. And you need something like this to make you act that way. WINSTON: And how much fun you were having. He will learn, because you're so interested in playing with him... BREAZEAL: That's right. That the machine, the computer, the brain will learn. And because of your interest in his organic reality, you'll make him more real. Imagine having to act with a character that doesn't exist and is not there, or to actually have that fantasy character sitting there and acting with you. It allows you a better performance. ALDA: That's it. Therefore you as an actor are going to be more believable on screen. We're going to believe the story, we're going to believe the fantasy character, and the best performance is going to come out of you. You know, you just made me understand Cynthia's work better, because as an actor, I understand how much more will come out of me if the other actor in the scene with me is behaving like a real person. And now I understand through that what you mean about how I'll feel when I sit down or stand up with my computer and talk to it, and it talks back like a person and responds to me with facial expressions like a person. I think I'll be in a different relationship to the computer or the robot than I've ever been before. Absolutely. The wonderful thing about this is we're sort of seeing its birth. ALDA: Yeah. The robot is there. The brains are now coming in and the learning process is going to go year after year. It'll be so interesting, I cannot wait for the deadline, which I kind of... because I've got gray hair, I said, "In six months, those brains have got to be connected." Then the next six months we see how much they learn. You're talking about in the robot. I'm talking about in the robot, yes, because mine are gone. ALDA: The collaboration between Hollywood chutzpah and MIT know-how is unique. And if Stan and Cynthia can pull it off, it may indeed result in a computer-- or a computer-controlled creature-- you can not only talk to but care about and that will at least give the impression of caring about you. WINSTON: Leonardo will actually be able to see, be able to hear, and be able to touch and feel. It will respond to you. It's amazing. And I'm going to take credit for all of it. ( both laughing ) BREAZEAL: Oh, no, you're not. ( laughs ) Oh, no, you're not. ( laughing ) ( laughs ) Do you want to go out for a cup of coffee later? ( Breazeal laughing ) ( chuckling )

Take a look at these related stories from the Frontiers Archive:

				Alan 2.0 Using the latest special effects technology, scientist use scans, recordings and animations of the real Alan to create a digital host.
		Select text to jump ahead in the clip: IN MOVIES THESE DAYS, THE MOST SPECTACULAR SPECIAL EFFECTS OWE MORE TO THE COMPUTER THAN THEY DO TO THE CAMERA. BUT THE MOVIE TITANIC TAKES COMPUTER-GENERATED EFFECTS INTO NEW TERRITORY BECAUSE NOT ONLY ARE MANY OF THE OBJECTS YOU SEE ON THE SCREEN DIGITAL RATHER THAN REAL, SO TOO ARE MANY OF THE PEOPLE. FACED WITH THE PROBLEM OF POPULATING A SHIP THAT DOESN'T EXIST THE MOVIE-MAKERS TURNED TO PEOPLE WHO DON'T EXIST. EVERYONE ON DECK HERE, FOR INSTANCE, IS A DIGITAL EXTRA. TAKE THIS MAN STRIDING PURPOSEFULLY PAST A WOMAN AND CHILD. HIS DIGITAL LIFE BEGAN WITH A REAL-LIFE ACTOR IN THE STUDIOS OF DIGITAL DOMAIN, THE HOLLYWOOD COMPANY THAT DID MOST OF TITANIC'S SPECIAL EFFECTS. THE WHITE BALLS ON HIS BODY ARE PICKED UP BY INFRARED CAMERAS. ONCE HIS MOVEMENTS HAVE BEEN CAPTURED IN 3-D LIKE THIS THE FLESH-AND-BLOOD ACTOR'S JOB IS DONE. Man: MOTION CAPTURE ALLOWS YOU TO ACTUALLY CREATE OR ANIMATE SOMEBODY IN A VERY NATURALISTIC WAY. AND THEN, ONCE THEY'RE IN THE COMPUTER YOU CAN TAKE THEM AND PLACE THEM ON ANY PART OF THE MINIATURE SHIP. Man: WE'VE POPULATED THE DECK OF THE TITANIC WITH THESE PEOPLE AND WE'VE DONE IT IN SUCH A WAY THAT NO ONE WILL NOTICE THAT THEY'RE FAKE. Alda: THE WHITE DOTS ARE CONVERTED INTO FAKE PEOPLE BY FIRST TURNING THEM INTO THREE-DIMENSIONAL STICK FIGURES WHICH CAN THEN BE LOOKED AT FROM ANY ANGLE YOU CHOOSE. THE STICK FIGURES THEN HAVE VIRTUAL BODIES DRAPED OVER THEM AND THESE, IN TURN, ARE GIVEN FACES AND CLOTHES. THE RESULT-- THAT MAN WE SAW STROLLING ON THE DECK. THIS IS THE MOTHER AND DAUGHTER HE PASSED. AND HERE ARE A COUPLE OF OTHER VIRTUAL ACTORS STRUGGLING WITH A VIRTUAL WIND. THAT FLYOVER OF THE TITANIC WAS PUT TOGETHER FROM A CAMERA MOVE OVER A MODEL SHIP WITH A DIGITAL OCEAN AND DIGITAL SHIP'S WAKE SCORES OF DIGITAL PEOPLE... THE ODD DIGITAL SEAGULL, AND A LITTLE DIGITAL SMOKE. IMPRESSIVE AS THEY ARE TITANIC'S DIGITAL CHARACTERS STAY STRICTLY IN THE BACKGROUND. BUT THEY GOT US TO THINKING: WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO CREATE A DIGITAL CHARACTER BELIEVABLE ENOUGH FOR A SPEAKING PART? ALAN, THIS IS ERIN. ERIN, HI. HI, NICE TO MEET YOU. Alda: LUCKILY, WE HAVE AN ACTOR ON HAND WHO'S RECKLESS ENOUGH TO LET HIMSELF TO BE DIGITALLY CLONED. HOW DOES THIS WORK? Alda: WE'RE AT VIEWPOINT DATALABS IN VENICE, CALIFORNIA WHERE WALTER NOOT IS ABOUT TO MAKE ME DIGITAL. AND THEN A LASER COMES ACROSS YOUR FACE. YOU PROBABLY WON'T SEE IT. IT'S VERY SLIGHT. SO ONCE THE LASER BEAM IS BOUNCING OFF OF HERE THEN HERE, THEN HERE, THEN IT GOES FURTHER IN HERE THEN IT COMES FURTHER OUT HERE, AND IT KNOWS WHERE IT IS HOW FAR IN OR OUT IT IS... THAT'S RIGHT. IT COMES UP HERE AND IT GOES BACK AND MEASURES THE DISTANCE? YEAH, AND SOMETIMES IT GETS LOST. YOU KNOW, IT HITS YOUR HAIR AND IT'LL GET LOST IN SOME OF THOSE AREAS. BUT THE FIRST FACIAL EXPRESSION WE WANT IS WE WANT YOUR EYES OPEN WIDE AND WE WANT A BIG SMILE, A PRETTY EXTREME SMILE. I CAN'T DO THAT, I CAN'T, I CAN'T. I'M WELL KNOWN FOR SMILING WITH MY EYES CLOSED. THIS IS MY WHOLE LIFE. THIS IS MY CAREER. THIS IS WHAT MADE ME FAMOUS. THEY SAID, "LET'S GO SEE THAT GUY WHO CAN'T SMILE WITH HIS EYES OPEN. " I'M COUNTING ON YOU TO GIVE ME A PICTURE OF MYSELF WITH MY EYES OPEN AND SMILING AND THEN I COULD GET MUCH MORE WORK! Erin: WE NEED TO TURN THE LIGHTS OFF TO DO THE SCAN. ( clears throat ) CHIN UP A LITTLE BIT. Alda: OUR PLAN IS TO SEE IF IT'S POSSIBLE WITH TODAY'S TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE A DIGITAL FACSIMILE OF MY HEAD THAT CAN TALK-- DOING AND SAYING THINGS THAT THE REAL ME HAS NEVER DONE OR SAID. OUR CODE NAME FOR THE PROJECT IS "ALAN 2. 0." THE JOB OF THE PEOPLE AT VIEWPOINT IS TO BEGIN THE PROCESS BY GENERATING THE DATA NEEDED TO CREATE THE 3-D MODEL. ( Alda chuckles ) THIS IS GOING TO LOOK GROTESQUE. Alda: HERE IT IS-- 250,000 POINTS OF DATA THAT, MADE TO LOOK SOLID GENERATE WHAT LOOKS LIKE A MARBLE BUST THAT WOULD BE RIGHT AT HOME IN A MUSEUM. BUT THEN THE COMPUTER CAME UP WITH THIS WEIRD-LOOKING MONSTER. Alda: WHO'S THIS? Erin: THIS IS YOU. THIS IS YOUR TEXTURE, CUT OPEN AND LAID FLAT. AND WHAT WE CAN DO IS EVENTUALLY TAKE THIS TEXTURE AND WRAP IT BACK AROUND THE MODEL OF YOUR FACE. THAT'S MY TEXTURE? YOU'VE FILLETED MY FACE. WE CUT YOU OPEN AND LAID YOU FLAT. Alda: SUDDENLY, CREATING ALAN 2. 0 DIDN'T SEEM SO FARFETCHED. Alda: HAVE WE REACHED THE POINT NOW WHERE YOU CAN TAKE A COUPLE OF PICTURES OF ME AND THEN BUILD A PERFORMANCE FOR ME IN A MOVIE AND I DON'T HAVE TO SHOW UP FOR WORK? THERE I AM IN THE MOVIE AND I DON'T HAVE TO SHOW UP? YES, WE'RE AT THAT POINT. YES?! I MEAN, CAN YOU SHOW SOMEBODY IN A CLOSE-UP LIKE THIS? YEAH, USING THIS KIND OF TECHNOLOGY, YOU CAN. Alda: WITH VIEWPOINT'S DIGITAL DATA IN HAND WE TURN TO THE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT WILL BE TO BRING ALAN 2. 0 ALIVE, TO ANIMATE IT-- SOMETHING THEY ALREADY DO FOR ANOTHER WELL-KNOWN ACTOR. Man: IT COULD BE A SPOKESMAN. Alda: THIS JOB, THOUGH, THEY THINK MIGHT BE TRICKIER. Man: THE MOST DIFFICULT THING IS, THAT WHEN YOU LOOK AT IT YOU'VE SEEN HIM SO OFTEN, YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HE LOOKS LIKE SO YOU CAN SEE ALL YOUR FLAWS. CONVERSELY, THAT'S THE MOST FUN PART. Alda: JIM RUSSELL IS ONE OF THE TEAM AT LAMB & COMPANY. THE FIRST THING HE DOES IS REPLACE THE HAIR THE LASER SCANNER MISSED. THEN HE LAYS MY FILLETED FACE OVER THE MODEL AND STARTS WORK ON GETTING THE HAIR THE RIGHT SHADE OF GRAY. NEXT HE GIVES ALAN 2. 0 SOME EYEBALLS AND STARTS YANKING BITS OF THE FACE AROUND TO CREATE SOME EXPRESSIONS. THIS IS A LOT OF SMALL STEPS AND IT'S SORT OF... IT'S LIKE SCULPTING. HERE I'VE GRABBED A POINT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOUTH. I CAN PULL THE MOUTH UP A LITTLE BIT SAY, IF I WAS GOING TO MAKE AN "O" OR SOMETHING. Alda: JIM SPENT HOURS TWEAKING AWAY AT THE DIGITAL ALAN AND HE TRIED ESPECIALLY HARD TO MAKE IT SMILE WITH ITS EYES OPEN. IN ALL, THE LAMB TEAM BUILT SOME 60 EXPRESSIONS AS THE BUILDING BLOCKS FOR WHAT WILL EVENTUALLY BE AN ALL-DIGITAL PERFORMANCE. BUT MEANWHILE THERE WAS THE LITTLE MATTER OF MAKING ALAN 2. 0 TALK. JUST AS THEY NEEDED A SAMPLE OF MY FACE THEY ALSO NEEDED A SAMPLE OF MY VOICE AND THEY WANTED IT AS LIVELY AND EXPRESSIVE AS POSSIBLE. I CAME UP WITH THIS: YOU KNOW, I THINK IT'S A GOOD IDEA THAT THEY HAVE A DIGITIZED VERSION OF ME. THEN THEY CAN SEND IT AROUND THE WORLD, INSTEAD OF ME TO THESE PLACES WHERE I DON'T REALLY WANT TO GO. THE PRODUCERS OF THIS SHOW HAVE ME DOING VERY DANGEROUS THINGS. THEY HAD ME WRESTLING WITH SHARKS AND CATCHING RATTLESNAKES. THEY SENT ME TO THE TOP OF MOUNT VESUVIUS ONCE. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? I SAID, "I DON'T REALLY THINK I OUGHT TO GO UP THERE. " AND THEY SAID, "WHY? " I SAID, "BECAUSE IT'S A VOLCANO. " I THINK IF THEY COULD SEND ME DIGITALLY TO MOUNT VESUVIUS I'D BE A LOT HAPPIER. GOOD LUCK. HAI. ARIGATO. Alda: THIS IS NICK CAMPBELL WHO WORKS FOR A COMPANY CALLED A. T.R. RESEARCH IN KYOTO, JAPAN. ( speaking Japanese ) HAI. OKAY, GOOD. Alda: NICK HAS PIONEERED A WAY TO DIGITALLY SAMPLE A VOICE THEN USE THOSE BITS TO MAKE THAT VOICE SAY ANYTHING HE WANTS IT TO. THE FIRST THING HE DID WHEN HE GOT THE TAPE OF MY VOICE WAS TO FEED IT INTO HIS COMPUTER... Alda ( recorded): I think it's a good idea to have a digitized version of me... Alda: ALONG WITH OTHER WORDS I'VE SPOKEN IN PREVIOUS EPISODES OF FRONTIERS. LET'S LISTEN TO THIS ONE, WHERE HE SAYS... Alda: Now, as anyone who knows me can tell you the secret to manipulating my emotions is food. THAT'S A NICE SENTENCE. WE'LL PULL UP THE WAVE FORM FOR THAT. Alda: THE WAVE FORM OF EACH WORD IS A VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF ALL THE LITTLE BITS IT'S CONSTRUCTED FROM. Alda: My... emotions... Alda: HERE'S THE WORD "EMOTIONS. " IT STARTS OFF WITH AN "E"... Alda: e... "M"... m... "O"... mosh... "SH"... sh... AND THEN THE... n... "N," AND THERE'S A... z... OKAY, SO THAT GIVES US THE WORD. emotions... Alda: FROM ALL THE WORDS WE SENT HIM NICK HAS BUILT A LIBRARY OF MY SPEECH SOUNDS. Campbell: LET'S LOOK AT SOME Os. I'LL PLAY YOU... THERE'S 50-ODD HERE I THINK I'VE TAKEN AT RANDOM THROUGH THE FILE BUT LET'S LISTEN TO SOME OF THEM. ( "o" sounds spoken with varying inflections ) THEY'RE ALL Os, BUT IF YOU LOOK AT THEM-- SOME ARE LOUD, SOME ARE QUIET. SOME OF THEM ARE LONG, SOME ARE SHORT. SOME ARE GETTING LOUDER, SOME ARE GETTING QUIETER. "N" IS A NICE ONE. THE LAST SOUND IN "EMOTION" COMES UP HERE. LET'S LISTEN TO SOME OF THOSE. ( Alda saying "n" with varying inflections and tones ) IT SOUNDS ALMOST LIKE HE'S SINGING BUT THESE ARE SPEECH SOUNDS, TAKEN FROM THE SPEECH. WELL, NOW THAT WE'VE GOT HIS SOUNDS IN THE DATABASE WE CAN PULL THEM OUT TO MAKE NEW SPEECH THAT SOUNDS LIKE HIM. UM... LET'S TRY... HOW'S THIS? Alda ( digitized ): This is Alan. HE NEVER SAID THAT... I THINK. Alda: "THIS IS ALAN" IN FACT CAME FROM FOUR DIFFERENT CHUNKS OF MY SPEECH STORED IN THE COMPUTER: "THISI," "SA," "L," AND "AN. " LET'S TRY "REMARKABLE. " Alda: Remarkable. Alda: THIS TIME THE COMPUTER STITCHED TOGETHER FIVE DIFFERENT WAVE FORMS EACH TAKEN FROM THE HUGE LIBRARY AT ITS DISPOSAL. FROM WORDS, IT'S A SHORT STEP TO SENTENCES. LET'S TRY THIS SENTENCE: "WHAT WILL SCIENCE COME UP WITH NEXT? " What will science come up with next? I THINK IT'S INTELLIGIBLE BUT IT'S CERTAINLY NOT NATURAL AND IT DOESN'T CARRY THE RIGHT MEANING. I WANT HIM TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE... WELL, LISTEN. "WHAT WILL SCIENCE COME UP WITH NEXT? " SOMETHING THAT'S A BIT MORE EXPRESSIVE, LIKE THAT. WHAT I'VE DONE NOW IS I'VE GIVEN THE SYNTHESIZER A MODEL OF THE WAY I SAY IT AND IT'S GOING TO COME UP WITH HIS VOICE, I HOPE. What will science come up with next? UH, IT'S CLOSE. IT'S CERTAINLY MUCH CLOSER TO WHAT I WANTED. Alda: WELL, IT'S NOT HOW I WOULD HAVE SAID IT AND I HAVE TO TELL YOU IT MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE TO HAVE MY VOICE SERVING SOMEONE ELSE'S INTERPRETATION. ( digital utterances ) Alda: THE NEXT STEP IS TO HAVE ALAN 2. 0's WORDS EMERGE FROM HIS LIPS AND FOR THAT, IT'S BACK TO MINNEAPOLIS. HERE, LAMB'S KELLY SCHRANDT IS BUILDING THE LIP MOVEMENTS SOUND BY SOUND, TO MATCH THE SPEECH. Schrandt: I SCRUB THROUGH THE AUDIO... Alda ( digitized ): Alan... Alan... AND I DECIDE WHERE THE "A" IN "ALAN" BEGINS AND ENDS. ( sound clips of utterances of "a" and "l" in "Alan" ) Alda: HERE'S THE "L" SOUND. AND NOW THE "AN. " ( sound clips of "l" and "an" ) FINALLY THE BIG DAY. IN A SUITABLY GRAND SETTING COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS IN BOSTON I WAS ABOUT TO CONFRONT MY DIGITAL TWIN FOR THE FIRST TIME. HE WAS A LITTLE STONY AT FIRST BUT A FLICK OF THE SWITCH WARMED HIM UP A LITTLE. Hi, Alan One, this is Alan 2. 0. Well, your dearest wish has come true: Here I am in all my digital glory. What do you think? I realize I owe my existence to you, but now that I'm here the producers and I have started wondering: what have you got that I haven't? So they've asked me to give you the news: You still get the dangerous assignments. The producers love scaring you. But the really tasty stories-- like there's this one on the science of pasta-- they're mine from now on. You see, I've promised never to complain. See you next season... maybe! SEE YOU NEXT SEASON. ( chuckling ) I DON'T THINK SO. Alda: NO, I DON'T THINK SO. BUT IN LOOKING AT ALAN 2. 0 I WAS BROUGHT FACE-TO-FACE WITH A SERIOUS QUESTION: IF YOU BUILD A PERFORMANCE OUT OF BITS WHOSE JOB IS IT TO PROVIDE THE SOUL? THIS IS A PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AT WORK.

				Robot Independence Natural selection is at work in the artificial world, as robots learn to reproduce without us.
		Select text to jump ahead in the clip: billions of different living things but it hasn't stopped there. Thanks to our invention of the computer evolution is now producing a whole new generation of creatures. Man: Evolution by itself has led to the creation of incredible complexity-- ourselves, all the organisms in the world. This process happened on its own, at least in my opinion. There is nobody that assembled all of these wonderful things in the world. On computers we can simulate the same process and we can get these very complicated, very interesting things without having to understand them and assemble them. Alda: Karl Sims was one of the first researchers in what is now a burgeoning field: artificial life. He started by giving his computer the instructions for a set of basic parts. Sims: The bodies of these creatures are fairly simple. They're just made of some number of blocks. The blocks are connected by joints which can bend or twist. The creatures also have a nervous system. They have sensors which can sense the angle of the joints or sense contact. And the nervous system processes the signals from the sensors and tells the muscles when to move which generates some kind of behavior. I've given it the capabilities to include all these elements but the computer actually decides how they're assembled and how they're used in specific creatures. Alda: Numbers chosen randomly by the computer-- a synthetic genetic code-- described how the first simple creature would look and how its nervous system would be wired. Then it was put into a simulated lake and told to swim. It twitched but it didn't get anywhere so now the computer went to work. Using the original numbers as its base the computer made a few random changes-- the equivalent of mutations. It did this again and again creating a new generation of 300 different offspring. Then all the offspring got a swimming test with the best swimmers selected as the basis for the next generation. Sims: When the computer makes mutations in the genes of these creatures it has no idea what these mutations are going to do. Sometimes the mutations might knock out a piece of the nervous system and perhaps cause the muscles not to move anymore. But other mutations might actually improve the motion. Alda: So from the original creature increasingly better swimmers evolved over generations all without any human intervention. In the end, this was the best swimmer of all. But when Karl Sims put it on simulated land it was like a fish out of water. So over subsequent generations the mutation and selection process had a new goal: to walk. After 15 generations, this was the champion. Other computer runs have produced even better walkers. Sims: Sometimes these evolving creatures would think of solutions to their goal which were completely different than I expected. In this one example the creatures got taller and taller and taller and would simply fall over. Instead of figuring out some clever way of walking they would fall to generate horizontal velocity. What I was telling them to do was to just move. And falling was a perfectly good solution as far as they were concerned. So this creature specialized in falling for as long as it possibly could including doing a complete somersault. Alda: Karl Sims' creatures may have evolved some very clever tricks but they're confined to the virtual world of the computer screen. All right, so what do I do? I take a piece and put it next to this? Alda: But here in Jordan Pollack's lab at Brandeis University artificially evolved creatures have already taken the first steps into the real world. Alda: You know, you should have had a five-year-old come and do this. What am I making here? Man: We call it the lamp. We don't really know what it is. It's a structure that the computer evolved or designed through evolution. Alda: The Brandeis computer is told the basic facts about Lego bricks: their weight, how firmly they stick together and so on. Then through hundreds of generations the computer uses its virtual Legos to evolve structures selected for how well they perform a certain task; in this case, to hold a 20-gram weight as high and as far to the left as possible. This is the computer's best current solution. A human-- in this case, me-- gets involved only to build it. This design was evolved to reach out as far as possible without breaking. And this crane was evolved in the computer to lift a 100-gram weight. The point of actually building the structures is to see how well a design evolved in the virtual world-- where everything is perfect-- holds up when it meets the real world where almost nothing is perfect. Man: Put it down gently, sir. All right, all right, let's see. Whoa! ( laughter ) Funes: It broke! Uh, was that me or was that the computer? Funes: I think... I think that was the gap on the table. Funes: I think that the books moved. The book moved? Yeah, I think that the books slipped. Oh, these books slipped. Now, there's an example of the real world, right? That thing worked in the computer. Had you ever put that catalogue on top of it? No. Yes. Oh, yeah, actually, before. Yeah, we have tried it. Okay, well, there's another example of the real world. I mean, sometimes the real world works one way and sometimes it works the other way. Pollack: Well, why don't we see if we have more success standing up today's new structure? Betsy and Greg have finished it. Now, this one's never been tested before. Never been tested before. Funes: The other one had been tested before. A lot of help that was. Alda: Now, it might seem odd in a show about life's really big questions to be worrying about whether a computer-designed Lego lamp is going to stand up. But Jordan and Pablo see this as the first step toward something far more ambitious: machines that are not only designed without humans but are built without humans-- in other words, robots that don't need us at all. So, there it is, it stands. Alda: But first things first. It's holding its own weight. It's holding its own weight. And now the question is, sir, do you want to... You have a real way with robots. I have a touch for this. Funes: No, not again! So put it between the last two knobs. Right between these two knobs. Alda: Okay, drum roll, please. I'm not going to jerk it. I'm just going to let it go... Look at that! Alda: Mission accomplished. Now, about those robots that can do without us... This artificially evolved creature is one of several the Brandeis computer has come up with that are very similar to the ones Karl Sims' computer created except that these creatures, with only minimal human help are already making the leap into reality. Man: The idea is that not only do we want the robots to be autonomous in terms of behavior and in terms of power but we also want them to be autonomous in terms of their own design and manufacture. Alda: Hod Lipson has written a program that allows the computer's design to be directly printed out in plastic. We've speeded up the time it takes but the remarkable fact is that between telling the computer what the robot should do and actually taking the robot out of its miniature factory no human was involved. There are still a few tricky steps that haven't yet been automated like plugging a motor into... well, at this point I'm not quite sure what. The computer came up with this loose, hanging-down piece in the evolution of this thing. What was it told to do? What was it told to make? The only thing that the computer was told to do is to make something that moves. As we will see this floppy thing is very important for its motion. Okay, this is great. Because, you know, if you just... I come up to this table and I look at this and you say the computer invented this great thing... ( laughing ): This great thing. and it moves and it uses this to move. And I'm thinking, "I don't think so. " The computer knows more than I do in this case. I can't wait to see this move around the table. That's the nice thing. You get creative, surprising sometimes, solutions. Yeah, there. Oh, look at that. There's something especially weird and interesting about the fact that the computer thought it up and then it told another computer to make it. Lipson: This is automation. And then you just have to help a little bit by plugging things in. Pollack: Plug in the motors. Alda: It's possible, of course, to see these awkward machines as the innocent forerunners of a sinister robot race that evolves beyond our control. But Jordan Pollack sees them rather as prototypes for cheap, disposable robots for everyday use. Pollack: You might have a meta-robot in your home and you say, "Gee, I want something to clean the front gutter of my house. " And you generate a robot and out it comes and you throw it up on the roof and it cleans the gutter of your house. And when you're done, you throw it in the recycling bin. This little robot-making machine... depending on what I need that week. Exactly. Alda: But as our little robot gets recycled in the laboratory toaster it's hard not to wonder if one day robots that can evolve and manufacture themselves will find humans unnecessary. These things might completely do without humans and surpass maybe human engineering capability and reach something that we can't think of today. How old is this telescope? Alda: The top of a modest mountain in MassachWusetts may seem an unlikely place to be asking our next big question:

				Robots Have Feelings Too SAGE, Bit and Kismet are robots with social skills. Researchers hope robotic emotions will make tomorrow’s technology more user-friendly.
		Select text to jump ahead in the clip: BUT IS PROGRAMMED TO ACT LIKE ONE. OKAY, HERE YOU GO. ( computerized voice ): HELLO, AND WELCOME TO DINOSAUR HALL AT THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. I'M SAGE THE WORLD'S FIRST SELF-AWARE, GUIDED ELECTRO-EDUCATOR-- SORT OF LIKE SOCRATES, ARISTOTLE, GALILEO AND EINSTEIN ALL ROLLED INTO ONE-- WITH WHEELS! BUT YOU DIDN'T COME HERE TO LEARN ABOUT ME, DID YOU? YOU CAME HERE TO FIND OUT ABOUT DINOSAURS. I ACTUALLY CAME HERE TO LEARN ABOUT YOU. YEAH, IT DOESN'T KNOW THAT. Alda: SAGE IS A ROBOT WITH ATTITUDE. STAND IN ITS WAY TOO MANY TIMES, AND IT CAN GET A LITTLE TESTY. Sage: EXCUSE ME, I'M GIVING A TOUR RIGHT NOW. IT HAS A LOT OF DIFFERENT EMOTIONS SO IT HAS FRUSTRATION, LONELINESS, CONFUSION HAPPINESS AND YOU CAN THINK OF EACH OF THESE AS A LITTLE BAR, A LITTLE METER THAT GOES UP AND DOWN. GRADUALLY, OVER THE COURSE OF THE DAY DEPENDING ON HOW PEOPLE INTERACT WITH IT EACH OF THESE WILL GO UP AND DOWN SLOWLY. YOU MEAN IF IT GETS IF IT GETS TOO MANY BAD INTERACTIONS EARLIER IN THE DAY IT'S CRANKIER AT THE END OF THE DAY THAN AT THE BEGINNING OF THE DAY? YEAH. NOW, IT WEARS OFF... WHAT'S THE ADVANTAGE OF A ROBOT? I CAN HIRE PEOPLE TO DO THAT. JUST LIKE A HUMAN BEING... THAT'S WHAT I GET MOST OF THE TIME WHEN I GO INTO A STORE ON A BAD DAY. EXACTLY. WE WANT THE ROBOT TO ACT THAT WAY BECAUSE PEOPLE RESPECT IT MORE. SO IF A ROBOT ACTS LIKE A MACHINE YOU KEEP PLAYING WITH IT, YOU GET IN FRONT OF IT AND YOU DON'T CARE IF IT DOESN'T GO AROUND YOU. YOU JUST STAND THERE AND SAY "I'M SMARTER THAN YOU, HA, HA, HA. " BUT WHEN IT ACTUALLY RESPONDS AND EMOTES THEN PEOPLE ACTUALLY PAY ATTENTION. AND THEY GO, "OH, EXCUSE ME. YOU'RE GIVING A TOUR, I'M SORRY. " SO THE REASON WE TAKE INSPIRATION FROM THE WAY HUMANS BEHAVE EMOTIONALLY IS BECAUSE IT MAKES IT DO A BETTER JOB OF INTERACTING WITH HUMANS. Alda: JUST THE FACT THAT SAGE MOVES AND TALKS ALREADY MAKES IT A MAGNET FOR CHILDREN. THE KIDS LOVE FOLLOWING IT, DON'T THEY? YEAH, THEY ATTRIBUTE LIFE TO IT BECAUSE IT MOVES. Sage: I AM GOING TO WAIT UNTIL YOU MOVE. I'M A ROBOT. I'M MORE PATIENT THAN YOU. Alda: HE'S SO HAPPY TO BE ABLE TO STOP THE ROBOT. Alda: AT THE END OF EACH DAY'S WORK AS A TOUR GUIDE SAGE E-MAILS ILLAH WITH AN ACCOUNT OF HOW THINGS WENT. Nourbakhsh: IT SAYS, "I GAVE 15 TOURS TODAY, ILLAH "AND MY HAPPINESS LEVEL IS AT 95% MY FRUSTRATION'S AT FIVE PERCENT AND I'M A LITTLE LONELY. " Alda ( laughing ): "A LITTLE LONELY. " HOW DO YOU USE THAT INFORMATION? WE PLAY WITH THE WAY IT BEHAVES WITH PEOPLE. SO WE ACTUALLY PLAY WITH ITS AFFECTION THE WAY IT INTERACTS WITH PEOPLE. WE'LL CHANGE HOW FRUSTRATED IT MAKES ITSELF SOUND. WE'LL CHANGE HOW NOISY IT IS WHEN IT'S LONELY. THEN YOU CHECK AND SEE IF FURTHER INTERACTION WITH PEOPLE MAKES IT A HAPPIER MACHINE. EXACTLY. AND DO YOU WANT A HAPPIER MACHINE? WE LOVE HAPPY MACHINES BECAUSE THE WAY IT GETS HAPPY IS WITH GOOD INTERACTIONS WITH HUMANS. Alda: ILLAH FORESEES ROBOTS YOU CAN RELATE TO NOT JUST IN MUSEUMS BUT THROUGHOUT SOCIETY. AND HE'S NOT ALONE. Alda: YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU FIRST WALKED IN I THOUGHT YOU WERE HOLDING A REAL BABY. THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAY YOU WERE HOLDING IT. ( robot baby coos ) Alda: HELEN GREINER'S BABY IS ACTUALLY A ROBOT CALLED "BIT. " Greiner: LIKE A BABY, IF YOU DON'T TREAT IT WELL IT WILL START TO GET CRANKY. BUT IF YOU PLAY WITH IT AND IF YOU NURTURE IT IT'LL REMAIN HAPPY AND RESPONSIVE AND GURGLE AND COO AND ACT LIKE A REAL KID. OH, IT'S UNHAPPY. I THINK HE'S UNHAPPY, SO I THINK... Alda: BIT'S SLIGHTLY SPOOKY REALISM IS ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO MAKE ROBOTS LESS LIKE MACHINES AND MORE LIKE US. THE IDEA IS THAT AS ROBOTS BECOME MORE UBIQUITOUS THEY NEED TO ACT MORE AND MORE LIKE THINGS WE THINK OF AS ALIVE SO WE KNOW HOW TO INTERACT WITH THEM AUTOMATICALLY BASICALLY. IF YOU GIVE THIS TO SOMEONE THEY'LL START TREATING IT LIKE A REAL BABY. Alda: WELL, WE'LL SEE. ( Bit burps ) YOU GOT IT TO DO ONE THING! IT'S REALLY INTO BELCHING. HOW ABOUT GIVING IT ITS BOTTLE? ALL RIGHT, HERE. Alda: IT'S A STRANGE FEELING. BIT'S VERY OBVIOUSLY NOT REAL BUT IT'S HARD NOT TO EMPATHIZE WITH IT. ( chuckling ): THERE'S A DEFINITE SMILE THERE. THAT'S GREAT, I MEAN, IT'S AMAZING... ( Bit burps again ) QUIET. IT'S AMAZING HOW YOU CAN GET SUCH A RANGE OF EXPRESSION. THE KEY IS TO HAVE A BEHAVIORAL CONTROL SYSTEM THAT HAS A LOT OF REALLY SMALL SIMPLE RULES ALL RUNNING IN PARALLEL THAT BUILDS COMPLEXITY. OH, LOOK AT THAT DISTRESS. MAYBE IT JUST HAS GAS. WHAT'S INSIDE THERE? WELL, ALTHOUGH IT LOOKS LIKE A BABY ON THE OUTSIDE... OH, I SAW THIS MOVIE. WHAT IT REALLY IS, IS A MECHANISM AND A COMPUTER AND SENSORS ALL OVER ITS BODY. Alda: BIT WAS CREATED BY A COMPANY CALLED I. S. ROBOTICS AND IS THE DIRECT DESCENDENT OF A ROBOT I MET SIX YEARS AGO. OH, VERY GOOD. HELLO, GOOD MORNING. Alda: "IT" WAS ALSO CREATED AT I. S. ROBOTICS. I'M SORRY, WOULD YOU JUST SAY THAT AGAIN? Alda: THE COMPANY HAD RECENTLY BEEN FOUNDED BY RODNEY BROOKS. "IT" WAS ABLE TO REACT TO THINGS LIKE PEOPLE GETTING TOO CLOSE TO ITS INFRARED DETECTORS WITH A CARICATURED HUMAN RESPONSE. ( laughs loudly ) IT OPENS ITS MOUTH IN UTTER SURPRISE. YEAH, AND IT RAISED ITS EYEBROWS. IT SORT OF GOT THIS REACTION OF, "OH, WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE? GET AWAY FROM ME. " Alda: "IT" WAS ONE OF THE FIRST ATTEMPTS TO GIVE ROBOTS AN APPEALING, IF SOMEWHAT EXAGGERATED APPEARANCE OF BEING HUMAN. "IT" TRIES TO APPEAR TO BE A HUMAN SO THAT WE CAN INTERACT WITH IT IN A WAY THAT'S LIKE A HUMAN. Alda: THIS IDEA HAS NOW FOUND ITS FULLEST EXPRESSION IN A ROBOT CALLED KISMET, BEING BROUGHT TO SYNTHETIC LIFE IN THE SAME M. I.T. LAB THAT COG INHABITS. THESE ROBOTS, LIKE BABIES ARE GOING TO SEEM ESPECIALLY APPEALING TO US. WE SPEND A LOT OF TIME WITH BABIES BECAUSE WE CAN'T RESIST THEM. Alda: KISMET'S EXPRESSIONS-- RANGING FROM BOREDOM TO HAPPINESS TO SADNESS TO INTERESTED ARE DELIBERATELY OVER THE TOP. IT'S VERY MUCH A CARICATURE TO MAKE IT THAT MUCH EASIER FOR YOU TO READ THE ROBOT. SO THAT WHEN IT LOOKS HAPPY, IT'S OBVIOUSLY HAPPY; WHEN IT LOOKS SAD, IT'S OBVIOUSLY SAD AND YOU GO, "OH, I DID SOMETHING TO UPSET IT. I SHOULD DO SOMETHING TO MAKE IT HAPPY. " IT'S REALLY TRYING TO GET YOU INVOLVED AT THIS KIND OF UNCONSCIOUS EMOTIONAL LEVEL. Alda: CYNTHIA SPENDS LONG HOURS IN FRONT OF KISMET AS SHE WORKS ON GIVING IT THE ABILITY TO RECOGNIZE OBJECTS AND REACT WITH ITS CARTOON-LIKE RESPONSE. AND HER WILLINGNESS TO INVEST THE EFFORT IS ITSELF A DEMONSTRATION OF THE GOAL OF THE RESEARCH-- TO MAKE PEOPLE WANT TO HELP THEIR ROBOTS SO THAT ROBOTS CAN MORE EASILY LEARN THE WAYS OF HUMANS. OH, YOU LIKE THAT. Alda: THE IDEA IS THAT ONE DAY COG HIMSELF WILL HAVE A KISMET-INSPIRED HEAD SO THAT ITS HUMAN COMPANIONS WILL TREAT HIM LIKE AN ENDEARING-- IF SOMEWHAT CLUNKY-- CHILD. SO SAD WHEN I TAKE AWAY YOUR TOY. Alda: RIGHT NOW, KISMET CAN MAKE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS BUT CAN'T RECOGNIZE THEM. THAT'S CYNTHIA'S NEXT TASK. BUT IT'S ONE SHE BELIEVES KISMET ITSELF WILL HELP WITH. FACIAL EXPRESSIONS ARE SO SUBTLE. HOW CAN YOU TELL WHETHER I'M SMILING OR MAKING AN ANGRY LOOK? THIS IS THE NICE THING. WHEN PARENTS INTERACT WITH YOUNG CHILDREN-- THIS IS ANOTHER REASON TO BUILD A ROBOT INFANT-- WE HAVE VERY EXAGGERATED BEHAVIOR. WE'RE LEVERAGING OFF OF THAT. IF YOU'RE DEALING WITH AN ADULT I MIGHT SMILE A LITTLE BUT I MIGHT SHIFT MY GAZE AND SO ON BUT IT'S VERY SUBTLE CUES. WHEN YOU'RE PLAYING WITH AN INFANT YOU'RE VERY EXAGGERATED. YOUR FACE IS EXAGGERATED, YOUR INTONATION... "OH, YOU'RE SUCH A GOOD ROBOT. " YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING IS SO EXAGGERATED. "YOU'RE SUCH A GOOD ROBOT! " EXACTLY... THAT IT'S MAKING THE PERCEPTUAL PROBLEMS FOR THE TECHNOLOGY MUCH EASIER THAN IT WOULD BE IF YOU WERE TRYING TO INTERACT AT A HUMAN LEVEL. SO YOU'RE COUNTING ON THAT BEHAVIOR? I'M VERY MUCH COUNTING. I'M TRYING TO PULL IT FROM YOU. Narrator: BUT ONE THING'S BEEN NAGGING AT ME ALL DURING OUR ENCOUNTERS WITH ROBOTS THAT THEIR MAKERS DESCRIBE AS HAPPY OR FRUSTRATED OR SURPRISED. WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN THESE MACHINES IS THAT LITTLE COMPUTER PROGRAMS ARE RUNNING THAT ENABLE EACH ROBOT TO APPEAR AS IF IT'S FEELING. I MEAN, IF IT MAKES FACES AND CHANGES EXPRESSIONS WE'LL READ STUFF INTO THAT. BUT HOW CAN IT POSSIBLY HAVE A BASE FROM WHICH TO BE SURPRISED, FOR INSTANCE? RIGHT, THIS IS THE REALLY DEEP QUESTION, I THINK-- WHETHER WE CAN MAKE THE MACHINES REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BE SURPRISED REALLY, REALLY, REALLY UNDERSTAND OR JUST APPEAR TO BE SURPRISED. THAT'S I THINK THE... HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY FEEL? I MEAN, WHAT WOULD REPRESENT FEELING? WELL, IN PRINCIPLE I THINK WE'RE MACHINES. YOU KNOW, WE'RE MADE UP OF LOTS OF LITTLE MINDLESS ATOMS AND MOLECULES WHICH WORK TOGETHER AND THEY PRODUCE THIS BEHAVIOR. NOW, SOME VITALIST MIGHT SAY THAT THERE'S AN ELIXIR OF LIFE INSIDE US OR SOME PEOPLE MIGHT SAY THERE'S A SOUL BUT AS A SCIENTIST FUNDAMENTALLY, I THINK WE ARE JUST... I THINK WE ARE JUST MACHINES. NOW, I DON'T TREAT YOU LIKE A MACHINE. NOT SO FAR, NO. I'M WILLING TO TREAT COG BECAUSE COG DOESN'T HAVE IT BUT YOU HAVE IT. THAT GETS RIGHT TO THE POINT OF IT. YOU CAN TAKE COG APART AND PUT HIM BACK TOGETHER AGAIN. YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO ME, TAKE ME ALL APART. SURGEONS CAN DO A LOT... YEAH, BUT YOU TAKE ME ALL APART YOU TAKE ALL THOSE LITTLE PARTS YOU TALKED ABOUT AND TRY TO PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER THERE'S GOING TO BE SOMETHING MISSING. WELL, THAT'S HOW WE THINK RIGHT NOW. BUT SUPPOSE WE GET THESE ROBOTS TO THE POINT WHERE THEY REALLY MAKE ME FEEL AS COMFORTABLE WITH THEM AS YOU MAKE ME FEEL COMFORTABLE-- HAVE ALL THOSE SOCIAL CUES HAVE ALL THOSE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS-- AND THEN AT THE SAME TIME I'M ABLE TO TAKE THEM APART AND PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER. WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT US? LET'S SAY YOU CAN DO THAT. LET'S SAY YOU CAN GET A MACHINE TO GIVE EVERY INDICATION THAT IT'S FEELING STUFF. SO WHAT? WHAT WILL THAT DO? WILL THAT JUST MAKE ME MORE COMFORTABLE WITH MY COMPUTER OR WHAT WILL THAT DO? HOW WILL THAT CHANGE THE WORLD? I'M INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT IS ABOUT US WHICH MAKES US HUMAN, WHAT ASPECTS. I'M TRYING TO DO THE REDUCTION WHICH SCIENCE ALWAYS TRIES TO DO, THE REDUCTION. WHEN SCIENCE LOOKS AT CHEMICAL PROCESSES WE TRY TO BREAK IT DOWN TO THE SIMPLEST THINGS. THIS IS MY ATTEMPT AT TRYING TO BREAK DOWN WHAT IT IS THAT MAKES US HUMAN INTO SIMPLER COMPONENTS TO THEREFORE UNDERSTAND IT. THINK OF YOURSELF AS THE MOTHER DUCK. NOW YOU'RE THE MOTHER DUCK.