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Researchers Create Facebook Profile For Robot

Posted on: Wednesday, 6 May 2009, 09:00 CDT

Facebookers could add a very unusual friend to their personal social site: a robot.

Researchers are setting up a Facebook profile page for a robot to help create significant connections in its development. The creators want the robot to interact in the social web in order to forge friendships.

The unique idea belongs to Dr Nikolaus Mavridis and co-researchers. They are looking for ways of surmounting the unwillingness people have of continued communication with robots.

While robots that interact with people are nothing new, research implies that humans grow bored after a few weeks as the behavioral catalog of the robot is explored fully.

In a paper on the pre-print website Archive.org server, the researchers say they want to find out if this can be thwarted by giving humans and robots a pool of shared memories and if they are part of the same social circle of friends.

The idea for investigating how a robot can distinguish faces was developed by Dr Mavridis and colleagues from the Interactive Robots and Media Lab (IRML) at the University of the United Arab Emirates.

The model is similar to a PeopleBot machine from ActivRobots, although they have added a supplementary range finder, touch screen and stereo camera.

The robot has three software modules that aid it human interaction. One module distinguishes faces of humans and the pictures they post on Facebook.

A language module allows the machine to have real-time discussions and helps it continue a catalog of its friends and their data on Facebook. This allows it to maintain its own Facebook profile.

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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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