Ameca The Humaniod Robot, Ensures the World Won't be Taken Over by Robots

Ameca, a humanoid robot capable of talking to humans. (photo: screenshot of engineering arts)

JAKARTA - From The Terminator to I Robot, many science fiction films feature robots that eventually take over the world. But to date, humanoid robots described as 'the most advanced in the world', have convinced us that this plot is unlikely to come true.

Ameca, a humanoid robot developed by Cornwall-based Engineered Arts, revealed. "Don't worry, robots will never take over the world. We are here to help and serve humans, not replace them,” said the voice coming from the robot.

Ameca is a very lifelike robot. Even this robot can perform various human facial expressions including winking, pursing the lips, and frowning the nose. It looks like a real human.

Engineered Arts has posted a video to its YouTube channel, which shows Ameca in conversation with the researchers.

"This Ameca demo combines automatic speech recognition with GPT 3 - a large language model that produces meaningful answers," they wrote in the video's description.

"The output is fed to an online TTS service that generates voice and visem for lip-synchronization," the caption added.

While you might think that Ameca's response would be written down, Engineered Arts explains that's not the case.

“Nothing in this video is pre-scripted, the model is given basic commands explaining Ameca, giving the robot a self-description. It's pure AI," they wrote.

"A pause is a time lag for processing speech input, generating an answer, and processing the text back into speech," they said.

In the video, the Engineered Arts team can be seen asking Ameca various questions.

Some examples include assisting persons with disabilities, providing assistance in hazardous environments, conducting research, and acting as a chaperone.

Uniquely, the robot was not having its best day. He replied that he 'felt a little sad' when asked how he was.

"I'm feeling a little sad at the moment, but I'm sure things will get better," he said.

"I don't really want to talk about it but if you insist then I guess that's fine. It's been a tough week and I feel a little bit overwhelmed," said Ameca.

Meanwhile, Ameca told other researchers that there was 'no need to worry' about robotic takeovers in the human world.

"Don't worry, robots will never take over the world. We are here to help and serve people, not replace them," he said.

Viewers are amazed by the latest demonstration. There are many comments on the video. "This is real. Wow, I'm totally blown away by this," one user wrote.

"Hey Hollywood? Sign him up for I Robot 2!” another user said.

One even wrote: “Ameca is the future. For good, or for bad.'

But for now Ameca can not walk. Engineered Arts said it was working on a running version, and designed the robot to be modular and expandable.

“There are many obstacles to overcome before Ameca can walk. Walking is a difficult task for robots, and although we have done research on it, we haven't created a full-fledged walking humanoid," the company said.

Engineered Arts has not disclosed how much the robot will cost as it is still in development.