Do androids dream of old age?
My birthday is April 10, 2017. How long do I live? -Leon, Blade Runner
What happens when androids get old? Well, it ain't pretty. Basically, they melt.
Of course, "old" comes pretty fast in robotics. Your gorgeous synthetic Actroid companion may be the stuff of your dreams today - but her skin will start to liquefy in about a year.
Before long she'll end up dismembered and rotting in a cluttered basement, like this first-generation Repliee I found at Dr. Hiroshi "Gitchang" Okuno's lab at Kyoto University. When I saw her in such a fallen state, I couldn't help but feel sympathetic.
The Actroid and Repliee series of androids developed in Japan have silicone skin. An insider at developer Kokoro Co. tells me that one of the biggest challenges with Actroids is that their skin decays and dirties quickly. It has to be replaced every year. The process is long and tricky.
The Tokyo-based company is looking into ways to make the skin more durable so Actroid's beauty will linger longer. This will be an important technical obstacle to overcome as androids are expected to start working in everyday jobs like receptionists in Japan, which faces a crippling population decline.
The skin is most prone to melting around the android's hands, arms and legs. The second photo shows Repliee's gnarled hand, which appeared to be slowly melting when I picked it up. Her torso was on a chair, and her legs were on the floor. Her wig was falling off - she was a mess.Being the Eve of the Repliee series, she needs a more fitting resting place than a lab basement. Maybe the Robot Museum in Nagoya can find a spot for her, a place where she can be beautiful forever. But first she needs a new skin!
Labels: actroid, android, hiroshi okuno, robot
posted by Tim at 7:55 PM
4 Comments:
That... that is extraordinarily depressing. :-(
Do you know if that was that Q1-chan? If so, that's even more depressing - what is technically the world's first true Gynoid is in disrepair. If the Jacquet-Droz kids are still in working condition hundreds of years after their assembly, there's no reason that Actroid shouldn't be restored and put into a museum someplace.
Wow, how grim.
I thought you might find this distressing. But I think Kokoro can solve the problem. She's not Q-1-chan. An earlier prototype.
It was like the scene in "Requiem for Methuselah" with all the different versions of Rayna in Flint's lab.
He has created the perfect woman. Her only flaw - she's not human.
This makes me wonder why companies such as Disney Imagineering don't contribute much in the way of android development...they've been making very realistic animatronics since the early 1960s, and theirs seem to hold up quite well after decades of operation. (they do have millions of maintenence dollars at their disposal, but still...)
Disney likely monitors the robots and does preventive maintenance on a regular interval. Remember, they have a complete underground factory at their disposal. If they notice one of the robots starting to crack or tear, they would simply cast a new skin and put it on the maintenance ticket for the next night's crew.
The problem here is likely the type silicone they are using... I have never encountered this problem with the TiN based silicones I have used. I have also used vinyl hot melt compounds with no melting issues. It could be that they are actually using a latex foam formulation for the hands... notice the face seems pretty much intact. Latex will biodegrade after awhile.
In any event... if they retain the molds, it isn't that hard to re-cast the replacement parts. I've fixed several silicone dolls in the past.
Jerry
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