The new creature created by Chinese scientists is called TongTong.Artificial intelligence. It is a prototype of a humanoid created to keep the elderly or parents without children company, categories that represent a great social challenge for China in demographic crisis.
TongTong is a virtual “little girl” who, according to its developers at Bigai (Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence) is able to interact with real people, treating them like mum and dad or grandparents. Scientists explain that it is equipped with two cognitive systems: the U system (capacity) and the V system (value). These characteristics allow her to change her attitude depending on her mood, determined by five dimensions: hunger, thirst, boredom, tiredness, sleep.
Scientists have already taught her to help her parents or grandparents with small, delicate gestures: knows how to turn on the TV if granny doesn’t want to get up from the armchair to take the remote control; Wipe up the spilled milk to please your mother; accept the cookies as a reward.
Bigai scientists claim that TongTong is already capable of feeling emotions (or rather, reproducing them thanks to its artificial intelligence which constantly learns from humans).
The prototype debuts this week at Beijing’s Zhongguancun Forum, a major technology exhibition. Her artificial parents designed her with a white t-shirt, pink trousers, red shoes, and a headband to keep her hair tied up. It still needs to be finalized. «Her mental and value system is comparable to that of a three or four year old girl, only as it develops will it be able to increasingly resemble a real person,” Dr. Zhu Song-Chun, director of Bigai, told the government newspaper Global Times. However, the scientist claims that his creature will grow and learn to behave very quickly: It will take her a maximum of three years to become as mature as an eighteen year old.
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