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Robot wars
In our occasional series on the UK’s efforts to build a robot to regain the lead in the technology race that it last held when we created the teasmade, we go to the University of Plymouth, to discover a project led by
Angelo Cangelosi, professor in artificial intelligence.
The project aims to teach the 1m-high iCub to speak using a project called iTalk. “The plan is to teach the
robot to speak by employing the same methods used by parents to teach their children,” says the university’s web site.
“Typical experiments with the iCub robot will include activities such as inserting objects of various shapes into the corresponding holes in a box, serialising nested cups and stacking wooden blocks. Next, the iCub will be asked to name objects and actions so that it acquires basic phrases such as ‘robot puts stick on cube’.”
We look forward to stage two of the project, where the iCub learns to send texts (“putN a stik on a cube S
realy borin”), hides the stick because it knows that really irritates Prof Cangelosi, and finally learns to make him a cup of tea.
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