A further step in the development of artificial intelligence is currently being practiced in Japan, where researchers from the Universities of Tokyo and Osaka are training a conversational artificial intelligence system to be able to laugh and smile. The goal is to achieve a more natural conversation with humans, because the challenge is not for a robot to laugh or smile, but for it to do so at the appropriate time and with the right intensity.
The moment and intensity in laughter and smile with keys for empathic communication
Koji Inoue, assistant professor of computer science at Kyoto University and co-author of the study explains that empathy is one of the essential functions of communication and that conversation, being multimodal, is not based solely on responding appropriately with words. In non-verbal communication, laughter and smiles are essential.and the appropriateness of the moment and the intensity with which they are added to the conversation.
The system that the researchers are training integrates all these elements so that a robot can combine them in the best way, detecting not only appropriate “laughable behavior” but also responding in a timely manner.
Erica is the name that the researchers have given to the prototype they are working with, a robot that is already capable of understanding natural human language to which it responds with a synthesized voice, adding blinking and eye movements, gestures that help offer an empathetic response to the conversation.
Through conversations in which Erica interacts with student volunteers, they rate Erica’s response of laughter and smiles in terms of empathy, naturalness, similarity to the human smile… It has been found that the simulations that work best are those conversations in which that Erica never smiles or in which she smiles every time she detects a smile in her interlocutor.
