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Robotics Idle Science

The Science of Human-Robot Love 88

Posted by samzenpus from the loving-the-robot dept.
MrSeb writes "Since Slashdot first covered lovotics back in July 2011, its creator — Hooman Samani — has been busy working on a couple of new applications for his fledgling scientific sphere of human-robot love: Kissenger and Mini-Surrogate. Kissenger is a robot with highly-sensitive and motor-actuated lips, which you can use to transmit a kiss to another Kissenger robot (held by a friend or loved one) over the internet. Mini-Surrogate is basically a real-world avatar that adds a physical element to video conferencing. Both are primarily for human-human use, but it's easy to imagine a Kissenger hooked up to an AI or video game. Likewise, the next Elder Scrolls game could come with a Mini-Surrogate, so that you can communicate with your in-game wife while you're knee-deep in fireballed orc."

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The Science of Human-Robot Love More

The Science of Human-Robot Love

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  • Sits back with popcorn (Score:4, Funny)

    by Killjoy_NL ( 719667 ) <slashdot@@@remco...palli...nl> on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @06:03PM (#38882667)

    Because the comments on this topic have the danger of being too hilarious :)

  • Get back to me (Score:4, Funny)

    by koan ( 80826 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @06:04PM (#38882689)

    When they have a device that allows me to slap people over the Internet.

  • Video conferencing implies board meetings to me, and I'm not sure this feature is going to be useful in that context. At least I hope not.

  • Am I among some minority that is not just a little, but very thoroughly grossed out by this type of technology? I guess for me it triggers some sort of Uncanny Valley response, where my first instinct is not to empathize with a human-seeming robot, but to run away screaming.

    • Hey, it's the most action some people will get. Plus, it may give you insights into relationships [youtube.com] you may not have previously considered.

    • Re:Let me be the first to say: Ew. Just gross. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @06:17PM (#38882881) Homepage Journal
      As someone who has worked in the adult "novelty" industry, I can say with confidence that sex is one area of human interaction in which the Uncanny Valley does not exist.

      Seriously, humans will hump damn near anything if you make it squishy enough... filthy beasts.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Seriously, humans will hump damn near anything if you make it squishy enough... filthy beasts.

        Who needs filthy beasts when you have tentacle monsters?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vlm ( 69642 )

          Seriously, humans will hump damn near anything if you make it squishy enough... filthy beasts.

          Who needs filthy beasts when you have tentacle monsters?

          That brings up the serious question that for better or worse we expanded the human experience in the printing era, more or less, with the invention of the tentacle meme. Are there any new internet era memes that have expanded the human experience in a similar way? And no this isn't a very thiny veiled request for a goatse link, I'm looking for something a little more general in concept, not one individual incident. Maybe the general concept of Camgirls? Or the concept of an infinite array of digitally d

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            I'm curious as to why you credit the printing era with the "tentacle meme". Sure, tako to ama [wikipedia.org] was a woodcut, but AFAIK there's no reason to suspect it was a new idea in Japan, and in European folklore (which I'm more, though still scantly, familiar with) bestiality definitely predates printing -- octopuses were not (so far as I know) included, probably because the octopus was not familiar to most of Europe.

            /serious

            Are there any new internet era memes that have expanded the human experience in a similar way? And no this isn't a very thiny veiled request for a goatse link,

            No it's not. When you say "internet era memes that have expanded" anything, you stripped away

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by azalin ( 67640 )
              As for pre printing age inter species contact you might want to read up on greek mythology. Zeus seems to have been rather creative when visiting the ladies (eg Leda).

  • Kissinger?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kylon99 ( 2430624 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @06:12PM (#38882813)

    "Kissenger is a robot with highly-sensitive and motor-actuated lips, which you can use to transmit a kiss to another Kissenger."

    Did anyone else get the image of making out with a robot with the appearance of Henry Kissinger? Or am I the crazy one here...

    • "Kissenger is a robot with highly-sensitive and motor-actuated lips, which you can use to transmit a kiss to another Kissenger."

      Did anyone else get the image of making out with a robot with the appearance of Henry Kissinger? Or am I the crazy one here...

      You're not crazy, you're just showing your age. Most of the people developing social media technology these days have no idea what Henry Kissinger looks or sounds like, and they totally don't get the Monty Python tune...

      You have better legs than Hitler and bigger tits than Cher

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Did anyone else get the image of making out with a robot with the appearance of Henry Kissinger? Or am I the crazy one here...

      Hey, at least you didn't order a Lucy Liu sexbot and get one that looked like Margaret Thatcher instead....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EdIII ( 1114411 )

        Did anyone else get the image of making out with a robot with the appearance of Henry Kissinger? Or am I the crazy one here...

        Hey, at least you didn't order a Lucy Liu sexbot and get one that looked like Margaret Thatcher instead....

        Any port in a storm.....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Did anyone else get the image of making out with a robot with the appearance of Henry Kissinger? Or am I the crazy one here...

        Hey, at least you didn't order a Lucy Liu sexbot and get one that looked like Margaret Thatcher instead....

        UPS can make that a reality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by unitron ( 5733 )

      "Kissenger is a robot with highly-sensitive and motor-actuated lips, which you can use to transmit a kiss to another Kissenger."

      Did anyone else get the image of making out with a robot with the appearance of Henry Kissinger? Or am I the crazy one here...

      Considering that you can't be absolutely sure who's operating the unit corresponding to yours, it brings back the old Nixon-era line "I wonder who's Kissinger now".

    • Not until I read your post. Now that horrible image is burned into my brain. Eww! Thanks a lot, dude!

  • kissing? (Score:4, Informative)

    by santax ( 1541065 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @06:15PM (#38882851)
    Oh come on... get it over with, make one that sucks cock. You all know we want one.
    • hahahah. It would be more useful..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lpp ( 115405 )

      Half of us do anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EdIII ( 1114411 )

        Half of us do anyway.

        LMFAO.

        What do you mean by half!?

        I don't think you mean that half of Slashdot is made up of gay men, because in that case it would still be 100%. It's just that they would also want the dildo on the other side they could suck.

        You must mean that half of Slashdot is made up of women, and none of them would want this. I disagree. They would all want it, and it would be the Christmas/Birthday/Anniversary present to their significant others.

        Some men only get blowjobs on their anniversaries. The difference is

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by qwak23 ( 1862090 )

          So what you really mean is that it's a present to themselves veiled as a present to their husbands. ;)

  • It kisses and doesn't tell? (Score:3)

    by forkfail ( 228161 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @06:15PM (#38882859)

    Then I'm sure that there will be a market for a cunning linguist model.

    (Somebody had to say it. You know you thought about saying it. I just did it for you.)

  • is why they don't incorporate a tongue in these devices. Even the lips on the device are not lips. Just one big lip!

    I mean.. this stuff is elementary dear Watson! It's hard to commercialize a single-lipped robot.

  • . . . I'll just stick with my fleet of "Cherry 2000s", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_2000 [wikipedia.org], thanks anyway . . .

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vlm ( 69642 )

      A classic movie. The hokey pokey scene is where it starts to get really weird. OK maybe it was pretty weird before then. That movie might make a good sliding scale test to see how far along in the movie you can watch before getting completely weirded out, figure out your tolerance level.

  • DRM error (Score:5, Funny)

    by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @06:21PM (#38882945) Homepage Journal
    "The penis you are using is not registered as an authorized device in our database; in order to preserve our intellectual property rights, it will now be confiscated and destroyed."

  • Can you fuck it?

  • Anyone else think the thing looks like a pig?

  • "I see you're wearing an amulet of Mara. Would you like root access to my love-server?"

  • Space Pope says (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    DON'T DATE ROBOTS!

  • If we had this technology in the shape of a buttocks then it would bring telecommuting to a whole new level.
  • What? No Demolition Man quotes yet?. Let me show how it's done

    John Spartan: "Look, Huxley, why don't we just do it the old-fashioned way?"
    Lenina Huxley: "Eeewww, disgusting! You mean... fluid transfer?"

  • Spotted a major desing flaw (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zAPPzAPP ( 1207370 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @07:34PM (#38883911)

    It needs a girl on the other end to function.

  • Anyone else had pictures in his mind you had hoped you would forget?

  • Should it be Heavy Metal's "Earth women who experience sexual ecstasy with mechanical assistance always tend to feel guilty"? Or Frank Zappa's "A latent appliance fetishist is a person who refuses to admit to his-or-herself that sexual gratification can only be achieved through the use of machines"? Ooh! I just can't choose!

  • I'm not a bad kisser. It's just that I have an unreliable network connection! Why did they have to use UDP for this?!

  • What if the person on the other end is a minor while you are an adult? Do you get charged for this as if it happened in "real life"?

  • ahahahahaha (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ahahahhahaahahha.

  • "1,245 like your weekend with your Loveboot 5000"
  • Didn't it appear in The Big Bang Theory? One of Howard's experiments, I believe.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2012 @11:25AM (#38891527)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

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