Javier Movellan , professor of cognitive

science | Machine Perception Lab

Hanson Robotics | Kokoro Co .

ORIGINS

No , researchers did not set out to create the world ’ s most adorable baby-headed robot . That was just a bonus . Diego-San is rather a multidisciplinary inquiry into robotics , computer science , developmental psychology and machine learning . This boy-bot was created to mimic the actions of a one-year-old child in order to study how young children learn to control their bodies and interact with people . On the technical side , the robot lends a greater computational understanding of how humans develop sensory motor intelligence .

SUPERPOWER

Smiling ! Diego-San ’ s most popular finding has been revelations into the nature of babies ’ smiles — what seems random and innocent actually serves a clear purpose . In fact , babies smile to make their mothers smile in return , yet they do this while smiling as little as possible . “ If you ’ ve ever interacted with babies , you suspect that they ’ re up to something when they ’ re smiling . They ’ re not just smiling randomly ,” says Movellan .

CUTE OR CREEPY ?

STATS

DIEGO-SAN IS NO SMALL TODDLER , MEASURING ABOUT 4 FEET 3 INCHES TALL AND WEIGHING 66 POUNDS .

AND THAT ADORABLE HEAD OF HIS CONTAINS ABOUT 27 MOVING PARTS .

Diego-San ’ s anamorphic noggin places him on the edge of the “ uncanny valley ,” the territory assigned to objects so lifelike they actually become unsettling . The bot is nevertheless the next step in the development of “ emotionally relevant ” robotics .

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