Humour

DeVito, the biped humanoid

T A Balasubramanian on Byramji's encounter with Hollywood actor Danny DeVito's look-alike humanoid

Inside Ironica Robotica’s labs, we find Doodh Byramji still in the company of Prof Ironica Asimova, the founder, and the two lovely people from her staff, Senior Researcher Nina Nilgiri, and Lola Lipton, Chief Designer and Head of the biodynotics team that made Chaibo, the tea-serving robot.

Byramji is, of course, on a mission to improve Chaibo. He’s trying to find ways to make the rebel robot more human-like, if possible, using some of Robotica’s latest findings. Known as Doodh, or Doodhi, he is an ever-curious design engineer at Baffle Technologies. His diary records the proceedings faithfully, as usual.

3.10 pm: Danny DeVito, who is introduced to me as Robotica’s first biped walking humanoid, has joined the session now. Recognising the familiar face and figure, and greeted by the cheery voice I recall from a variety of comic Hollywood movies, I am still in a bit of a daze.

“Why DeVito?” I ask, when I recover my voice.

“Short for Debonair, Vocal IT Oddball,” says Ironica, with a straight face. “He’s also a hot favourite with both these uncontrollable girls.”

“Isn’t he adorable?” squeals Lola, as she pats the top of DeVito’s head and bends down to kiss the chubby cheek he presents. “Tell Doodh more about yourself, Danny,” she whispers. “All your secrets, too, except the ones I kept in your hidden space.”

DeVito winks at her, laughs aloud, then turns to me and points to his feet. “I’m a biped, so let me walk you through a guided tour of me, Doodh. See? Intelligent servo actuators enable me to walk on two feet, dance, climb and descend stairs, not fall over when shoved, and even pick myself up when I take a tumble,” he says, dropping to his knees, then quickly rolling over and sitting up before jumping back to his feet.

“Hey, I can run at 14 meters per minute, sometimes with both feet leaving the floor,” he whoops. “You see these two big eyes? Using twin charge coupled device, or CCD, cameras, I can recognise and identify faces, even if they’re flashed at me for just a few seconds. I can make a video of this session, too. I was already told about you and given your picture to memorise before you walked in here today. I have seven microphones and a speaker, so I’m able to identify voices, talk, sing, and understand about 200,000 words. Enough to give me a walk-in part in any Hollywood production,” chuckles DeVito. “And I don’t think anyone will know the difference between me and the real Danny out there.”

“Umm. You’re quite a cute character, Mr DeVito … Danny,” I mumble.

“Cute? Ha, ha. I’m a cutie, eh? That’s what all the girls tell me, too,” says the chubby biped humanoid with a wink. I marvel at how easily I have been drawn into talking to ‘him’ without a single qualm of creepiness. Compared to DeVito, Chaibo is an antique—a squat, compact mechanical robot resembling a grey version of a moving can on wheels. The difference is vast and overwhelming.

This was robotics elevated into a new domain of simulation. He was right, too—the real-life version DeVito, I imagine, would have a hard time telling himself apart from this doppelganger. Then I realise that DeVito, the biped humanoid seems to have, not only the fleshy contours, but even the smooth skin, part wrinkly in some places, that we all have wrapped around us when we arrive on the human highway.

“How do you have skin like us?” I ask, feeling foolish.

“You can thank the Japanese for that,” says Ironica, before DeVito can answer, since he looks a little bewildered. “Artificial skin already exists that can detect pressure, but it is difficult to make in large enough quantities to cover a robot body, and it does not stretch. There is stretchable artificial skin that is used, for instance, to provide grafts for human burns victims, but it is insensitive to heat and pressure. Japanese researchers have now combined the two, creating a skin that is stretchable, and that remains as sensitive to pressure and temperature when it is at full stretch as when it is relaxed.”

Nina steps in to pinch DeVito’s chubby cheek, which reddens as he winces. “Hey, that hurts, lady,” he yelps. “But ooh, what a touch,” he grins.

“Danny is red-faced because his skin is flushed with a fluid that mimics blood,” Nina says, patting the cheek she has just pinched.

“He can’t actually feel pain, though he yells a lot,” laughs Lola.

“Skin-like sensitivity, or the capability to recognise tactile information, will be an essential feature of future generations of robots,” Ironica says. “Over a million robots carry out repetitive tasks in highly structured environments, and their employers spend four or five times as much on those environments as on the robots themselves. If they can’t sense changes in their surroundings, the robots are not safe. They can’t work alongside human beings.”

“That’s right,” DeVito nods. “We need insurance, and what’s better than starting off with my own special skin?

“But with faux skin, Danny, you must learn to be cautious,” says Ironica, patting his arm. “Under your skin is a matrix of pressure and temperature sensor arrays made out of organic, or plastic, transistor circuits. The film is flexible enough to be rolled or bent around a spindly robot finger, but it’s not yet as evenly stretchy as human skin. What we have here on Danny is a special film with its integrated circuits put into a mesh whose struts twist when tension is applied. The resulting net is extendable by about twice the deformation of the skin over your elbow when you bend it fully,” she adds, bending DeVito’s arm to illustrate.

“A touchy-feely biped humanoid,” I say, tapping DeVito on his arm reflectively.

“Hey, I could say the same thing about you, Doodh,” DeVito cracks back, slapping me lightly on my back. The touch is firm, yet gentle, like being patted by a human palm.

“With that level of sensory discrimination,” Ironica says, “Danny could detect more variation in the objects he encounters, and perhaps begin to learn about relationships between objects, their functions and meaning. That’s a good way to get a robot to manage his environment on his own, and get to be a really intelligent creature.”

“Intelligent creature? Creature, me? Hey, Prof Asimova, I know you’re like my mommy, but could you play down your lofty high-and-mighty tone? I happen to be present and listening, if you please, and you’re getting under my skin,” says DeVito, suddenly galvanised into action as he stalks around the table.

“Oh, oh,” sighs Ironica. “I’m sorry, Danny. I forgot that you have feelings like the rest of us.”

You could say that Ironica is becoming a testing ground for the new generation of robots. In more senses than one.