Technologies

‘You have to distance yourself from it being a human’: Meeting Ameca the humanoid

Yea, though I walk through the uncanny valley, I will fear no evil.

This story is part of CES, where CNET covers the latest news on the most incredible tech coming soon.

There’s something distinctly unsettling about planning your first meeting with a robot.

At CES 2022, I had the chance to interview Ameca the robot during a one-on-one demonstration with its creators. I wanted to know if this humanoid was actually real. I wanted to see if its facial expressions were as realistic (and haunting) as they were in the videos I’d seen online. But mostly I wanted to know how the robot would respond to my questions. Should I prep a Voight-Kampff test, just to be sure?

It turns out I needn’t have worried about feeling disturbed by Ameca’s spoken responses. They were no more troublesome than what I get from Alexa. But the face Ameca made when its creator tried to poke it in the face? That will stay with me for a long time.

If you’re on the internet, you’ve probably seen Ameca. The gray-faced, humanoid robot blinked its way into the public consciousness in late 2021 when a video of its facial expressions went viral on social media. Elon Musk responded to the video with one word, «Yikes.» Chrissy Teigen retweeted it to her 13 million followers with four words: «absolutely. the fuck. not.»

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But while Ameca had some people running for the hills, its creators at UK company Engineered Arts were delighted.

«We were incredibly surprised,» says Morgan Roe, Engineered Arts’ director of operations. «Overnight, it became a sensation. We got 24 million views on one Twitter post.»

Roe puts it down to Ameca’s not-quite-robot, not-quite-human appearance. Its body is all metal and plastic, its face is a deliberately genderless and nonhuman gray. It has 17 individual motors inside its head controlling its movements and expressions. But its facial features are surprisingly vivid and emotive. And it’s this combination of artificial and lifelike that Roe says speaks to our collective vision of what humanoid robots will look like in the future.

«We’ve all seen it in the movies, we’ve all seen iRobot and A.I. Artificial Intelligence,» he says. «And suddenly, that’s real.»

Roe is speaking to me via Zoom from the show floor of CES, where Ameca is being shown to crowds, in the latex flesh, for the first time. Even though I’m seeing Roe and his robot over a Zoom call, it’s hard to shake just how real Ameca looks. I find myself distracted. I’m no longer speaking to the very friendly human Englishman I’m supposed to be interviewing. My eyes are straying over to Ameca’s face to see how it’s responding to our conversation. A furrowed eyebrow ridge, the twitch of a smile. Ameca isn’t human, and yet…

This isn’t the first hauntingly humanoid robot Engineered Arts has released. For the past four years, the company has been creating a line of lifelike Mesmer robots and showing them to conferencegoers on crowded show floors.

«Each Mesmer robot is designed and built from 3D in-house scans of real people, allowing us to imitate human bone structure, skin texture and expressions convincingly,» the Engineered Arts website tells prospective clients. «Mesmer is designed to be modular, so you can remove the head with one click and no tools, and swap it for another.»

Princess Mombi, eat your heart out.

Ameca isn’t destined for the conference circuit. It doesn’t run and jump like the robots created by Boston Dynamics, and it’s not something you can preorder now as a household helper. Roe says it’ll be at least 10 years before a robot like Ameca is «walking amongst us» as a service robot. Sure, Walking Among Us sounds like the title of the documentary that’ll eventually chronicle the decline of humanity, but we’ve got another decade before we need to worry about that.

Ameca also doesn’t have Mesmer’s flesh-colored skin tones. In place of the lifelike human hair on Mesmer’s head, Ameca has a translucent plastic skull. We see the robot’s joints and parts. Ameca is still undoubtedly «other,» and that’s deliberate.

«What we found was, when you try and make it look ultra lifelike [like] our other Mesmer line, it looks a bit more sinister, because it’s right in the uncanny valley,» Roe says. «But when we created Ameca, we pulled it backwards out of the uncanny valley.»

Of course, as Roe is saying these things to me over our Zoom call, Ameca is responding. Raising its eyebrows at people walking past. Subtly moving its lips (or, more accurately, the actuators around its mouth hole) as though trying to ape the speech of its human creator.

«Because it looks less human…» says Roe, while Ameca smiles into the middle distance.

«Because it’s plastic, because it’s metal…» says Roe, Ameca glancing over at him with a vague smile.

«Because it’s of gray skin, it’s suddenly…» Roe waves his hand near Ameca’s face and the robot leans back, startled.

«Ooh, hello,» says Roe, making eye contact with the humanoid and leaning back in startled unison. He’s lost his train of thought.

«It’s suddenly, uh, less — less scary.»

I’m struck with the urge to ask the question I’ve been thinking all along. The question I’ve wanted to ask since I first saw the video of Ameca in the lab, with its engineer/programmer hunched over a laptop and another identical Ameca moving slowly in the background.

«When you’re in your offices, working late into the night on some extra lines of code, do you ever do a double take or have to check behind you, at the robot, to see if it winked at you?» I ask.

«Actually no,» says Roe. «When you’re working with it day to day, it’s suddenly, definitely a robot. And a lot of the time, you’ll see one of the engineers walking through the workshop, not with a robot, with just the head. And you have to distance yourself from it being a human. Otherwise, then it’s really sinister.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 23 #599

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 23, No. 599.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle might be Halloween-themed, as the answers are all rather dangerous. Some of them are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Please don’t eat me!

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Remember Mr. Yuk?

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

POND, NOON, NODE, BALE, SOCK, LOVE, LOCK, MOCK, LEER, REEL, GLOVE, DAIS, LEAN, LEAD, REEL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

AZALEA, HEMLOCK, FOXGLOVE, OLEANDER, BELLADONNA

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is POISONOUS. To find it, look for the P that is the first letter on the far left of the top row, and wind down and across.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Oct. 23, #395

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Oct. 23, No. 395.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition has one of those crazy purple categories, where you wonder if anyone saw the connection, or if people just put that grouping together because only those four words were left. If you’re struggling but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Fan noise.

Green group hint: Strategies for hoops.

Blue group hint: Minor league.

Purple group hint: Look for a connection to hoops.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Sounds from the crowd.

Green group: Basketball offenses.

Blue group: Triple-A baseball teams.

Purple group: Ends with a basketball stat.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is sounds from the crowd. The four answers are boo, cheer, clap and whistle.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is basketball offenses. The four answers are motion, pick and roll, Princeton and triangle.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is triple-A baseball teams. The four answers are Aces, Jumbo Shrimp, Sounds and Storm Chasers.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends with a basketball stat. The four answers are afoul, bassist, counterpoint and sunblock.

Technologies

Amazon’s Delivery Drivers Will Soon Wear AI Smart Glasses to Work

The goal is to streamline the delivery process while keeping drivers safe.

Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is developing new AI-powered smart glasses to simplify the delivery experience for its drivers. CNET smart glasses expert Scott Stein mentioned this wearable rollout last month, and now the plan is in its final testing stages.

The goal is to simplify package delivery by reducing the need for drivers to look at their phones, the label on the package they’re delivering and their surroundings to find the correct address.

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A heads-up display will activate as soon as the driver parks, pointing out potential hazards and tasks that must be completed. From there, drivers can locate and scan packages, follow turn-by-turn directions and snap a photograph to prove delivery completion without needing to take out their phone.

The company is testing the glasses in select North American markets.

Watch: See our Instagram post with a video showing the glasses

A representative for Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

To fight battery drain, the glasses pair with a controller attached to the employee’s delivery vest, allowing them to replace depleted batteries and access operational controls. The glasses will support an employee’s eyeglass prescription. An emergency button will be within reach to ensure the driver’s safety.

Amazon is already planning future versions of the glasses, which will feature «real-time defect detection,» notifying the driver if a package was delivered to the incorrect address. They plan to add features to the glasses to detect if pets are in the yard and adjust to low light.