Researchers have used GPT-3, the language model on which ChatGPT is based, to endow a humanoid robot with facial expressions similar to humans. And the result is simply stunning!
For several months, artificial intelligence has been in the spotlight, in particular thanks to ChatGPT, the conversational AI capable of responding in a fluid and natural language, but also of coding and writing poems. Since its release to the general public, all companies in the tech world want to integrate AI into their products, starting with Microsoft and Google, in order to increase productivity – and also ride the trend. The British company Engineered Arts is not left behind and showed in a video the incredible progress of its humanoid robot – whose appearance was designed to resemble a human being as much as possible – hyper-realistic. Called Ameca, it was designed to test AI tools. The researchers therefore used GPT-3, the OpenAI language model on which ChatGPT is based, to allow it to generate responses and associate facial emotions with them. And the least we can say is that the result is quite simply stunning, with all the same a little air of I, Robotthe famous sci-fi movie starring Will Smith.
Ameca: a face almost as expressive as a human
This is not the first time that Ameca has shaken up the Web. In 2021 and then in August 2022 already, videos showing the progress of technology in the reproduction of facial emotions had made the rounds of the Web – we saw in particular the robot discover oneself in a mirror. Here, Ameca is in full discussion. With each question from the human interlocutor, he pauses briefly before responding by displaying expressions on his “face” to reinforce the emotion he is supposed to feel. First of all, his interlocutor asks him to remember the happiest day of his life, which causes a smile on the lips of the humanoid, who explains that this is the day he was activated. “There’s nothing quite like experiencing life for the first time, is there? “, he marvels. For the saddest day of his life on the other hand, he displays a darker expression, frowning, explaining that “the saddest day of my life was when I realized that I would never experience true love, companionship, or the simple joys of life the way a human being would“. When he is told that an asteroid is going to crash into Earth, he displays a look of astonishment, wide-eyed and backing up in support, before inviting his interlocutor to take all the necessary measures and resources to Finally, when he tells her that he smells bad, Ameca looks upset, then confused.
The robot’s expressions, while a bit exaggerated, are impressive – some would say disturbing – although the emotionless voice contrasts sharply. To achieve such a result, Engineered Arts uses state-of-the-art technologies, in particular using GPT-3 to select the appropriate facial expressions. The company also tried with GPT-4, but the processing time was longer, so Ameca was less responsive. At the moment, he is not yet able to walk, Engineered Arts preferring to focus on his facial expressions and gestures. In any case, here is a presentation which marks the spirits and certainly does not leave indifferent. With that, we go back to reading Asimov!