Happy Birthday, Horrifying Japanese Child Bot: You're Two

via Gizmodo by John Mahoney on 4/6/09

Since we first met Child Robot with Biomimetic Body (CB2), he's been taking a lot in through the black pools of terror he uses for eyes: The little guy's taught himself to walk. Yikes.

CB2 is one of Japan's most advanced robotics projects—using 197 sensors under its pallid gray skin, eye-cameras, 51 pneumatic "muscles" and the high-end processing power to drive it all, it has learned to recognize facial expressions, follow the gaze of its "mother" and even teach itself to walk. Says PhysOrg:

[Osaka University professor Minoru Asada], also a member of the Japanese Society of Baby Science, said his team has made progress on other fronts since first presenting CB2 to the world in 2007.

In the two years since then, he said, CB2 has taught itself how to walk with the aid of a human and can now move its body through a room quite smoothly, using 51 "muscles" driven by air pressure.

In coming decades, Asada expects science will come up with a "robo species" that has learning abilities somewhere between those of a human and other primate species such as the chimpanzee.

It also talks:

Thank goodness Christian Bale will be able to protect us in the future. Until then I'll be hiding in an underground bunker. [PhysOrg]