A short video about our prototype for a talking robot pet developed at the University of Sheffield using the MiRo-e animal-like robot integrated with AI perception and language models.
With the advent of AI large language models such as ChatGPT there is growing interest in the possibility of robot companions that we can talk to. New deep neural network models have also transformed the ability of robots to understand and act in the world through their perceptual and motor systems.
This means that robots can go beyond technologies such as Siri and Google Assistant and have conversations about what is happening in the world around them, and physically interact with people in different settings.
At Sheffield Robotics we are integrating these technologies into various robot platforms, our long term goal is to understand how robots could fit into the social fabric of human society in ethical, inclusive and, of course, fun ways. "Hey MIRo!" was exhibited at the Sheffield Festival of The Mind 2024.
This exhibit was supported by the Wellcome Trust through the Imagining Technologies for Disability Futures project and by InnovateUK under the UK’s funding guarantee scheme for the European Innovation Council Pathfinder project CAVAA (project no. 101071178).
More info at:
https://heymiro.org/
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/sheffieldrobotics