To Make Your Robot Emote Well, Keep It Simple

July 14, 2011, 6:53pm

The robots are coming. To the movies. To register their arrival and explore our bonds with them, Heather Knight, the charming roboticist we met at the H+ Summit, has put together the Robot Film Festival. It boots up in New York on Saturday, and will dispense Botskers, or “robot Oscars” to the finest filmic representation of human-robot relations. In an interview with the Creators Project, Knight pointed out that for all the sophistication we expect (fear?) from our sci-fi bots, sometimes the simplest machines can be the most emotionally compelling. Try to make them too human of course, and you’ll end up stuck in the valley:

I am very conscious of the limitations of robotic technology; from intelligence to speech detection to simulating human behaviors when we don’t even understand ourselves. I’m also conscious of how constraints can breed creativity. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from artists, it is that a clear vision can be the most impactful. The simpler and more intuitive the interface, the more understandable the controls and intended use, the more likely we will be able to use it properly, enjoy the experience, and tweet it to our friends. I think the ‘Aha’ moment is important: as data visualization artist Jer Thorp once said, projects should be one part ‘ooh’ and another part ‘aah’—something you learn and something that inspires you. If a sock puppet, marionette, or simple animation can be expressive, certainly we should be able to come up with a compelling behavior system for a simplified robotic character. Noh Theater is another big source of inspiration for me.

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The Robot Film Festival, then, is like the inverse of the Robocup, the annual international robotic soccer contest: the most loved robots here aren’t necessarily the smartest, but rather the most interesting, cute, and loyal. At least until the Singularity that is, when the same robot is liable to beat Spain in the World Cup, get nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and hire Alex Trebek’s digitized brain as her personal assistant.

That sounds like a terrible movie.

See more at the festival website, and check out some of our own robot movies below.