Yzabel / July 29, 2005

True or not? She sure looks like it. Seen on the BBC News online page, this article mentions how Japanese develop ‘female’ android:

Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised – a “female” android called Repliee Q1.She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe.Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human.

Putting aside all the considerations that can be had regarding how technology in that domain has progressed, going from barely able to stand pieces of metal to an almost human-looking one, I can’t prevent myself from thinking furiously to Philip K. Dick and to his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. There are implications and ramifications here, that could ge way beyond what one would expect. Real androids, that could one day pass for humans and fool even the most observant minds… perhaps even starting by their own. Fascinating and yet frightening thought, too, for us who are so bent on our identity.For the moment, though, perhaps it’s best to simply take it as what it’s meant to be — technical progress in action?