HUFFINGTON
07.15.12
PREVIOUS PAGE: COREY HENDRICKSON (BINA-48); MARTINE ROTHBLATT (ASPEN)
YOU. ROBOT
like he’s putting her in a casket.”
Renowned robot designer
David Hanson designed Bina-48
over the span of three years, after a commission by Terasem’s
founder, Martine Rothblatt. Bina-48’s face, which is made of
“Frubber,” a patented material
Hanson created to give faces
life-like characteristics, works
with tiny motors to duplicate
eerily realistic expressions. She
can move it side to side and
show a range of emotions —
boredom, happiness, exhaustion
and confusion, among
many others. Sometimes
her facial movements
appear grotesque.
Before you speak
with Bina-48, you have
to train her to understand your voice, using
speech-recognition software. Her robot mind is
made up of many parts,
all of which come together in an occasionally
muddled way when you speak
with her. There’s the “chatbot”
side, which can have a seminormal conversation about the
weather or what the time is
(she loves asking, “What time
is it there?”). There’s also the
information side, which has
encyclopedic knowledge on just
about any subject — from multiple sclerosis to the geographical makeup of Somalia.
Finally, there’s the human Bina
side, which was created using
over 20 hours of video interviews
Duncan conducted with both
Rothblatts, more than three years
ago. When the human si Hق