Artificial human companions may be any kind of hardware Hardware is a general term for the physical artifacts of a technology. It may also mean the physical components of a computer system, in the form of computer hardware or software Computer software, or just software is a general term primarily used for digitally stored data such as computer programs and other kinds of information read and written by computers. Today, this includes data that has not traditionally been associated with computers, such as film, tapes and records. The term was coined in order to contrast to the creation designed to give companionship to a person. These can include digital pets A digital pet , is a type of artificial human companion. They are usually kept for companionship or enjoyment. People may keep a digital pet in lieu of a real pet, such as the popular Tamagotchi The Tamagotchi is a handheld digital pet created in 1996 by Aki Maita and sold by Bandai. Over 70 million Tamagotchis have been sold as of 2008. The Tamagotchi is housed in a small and simple egg-shaped computer. Three buttons (A, B, and C) allow the user to select and perform an activity, including:, or robots The word robot can refer to both physical robots and virtual software agents, but the latter are usually referred to as bots. There is no consensus on which machines qualify as robots, but there is general agreement among experts and the public that robots tend to do some or all of the following: move around, operate a mechanical limb, sense and, such as the well-known Sony Sony Corporation (Japanese: ソニー株式会社, Sonī Kabushiki Kaisha?) (TYO: 6758) is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008). Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of AIBO AIBO was one of several types of robotic pets designed and manufactured by Sony; there have been several different models since their introduction on May 11, 1999. AIBO was discontinued in 2006. Virtual companions can be used as a form of entertainment Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as games or sports, are more often considered to be recreation. Activities such as personal reading or practicing a, or they can be medical or functional, to assist the elderly in maintaining an acceptable standard of life.
Introduction
Senior citizens make up an increasing percentage of the population in the Western nations, and, according to Judith Masthoff of the University of Brighton, they tend to live alone and have a limited social network. Studies also show that those elderly living in such circumstances have an increased risk of developing depression Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. The term "major depressive disorder" was selected by the American Psychiatric Association to designate this symptom cluster as a mood disorder in and dementia Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously-unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging. It may be static, the result of a unique global brain injury, or progressive, resulting in long-term decline due to damage or disease in the body. Although dementia is far more common in the geriatric population, it and have a shorter life span than more socially connected seniors.
It has been known to gerontologists Gerontology is the study of the social, psychological and biological aspects of aging. It is distinguished from geriatrics, which is the branch of medicine that studies the disease of the elderly for some time that pets A pet is an animal kept for companionship and enjoyment or a household animal, as opposed to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful characteristics, for their attractive appearance, or for their song. Pets also generally seem, particularly those such as cats The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felines and felids, is a small carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin and household pests. Cats have been associated with humans for at least 9,500 years, and are currently the most popular pet in the world and dogs The dog is a domesticated form of the wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The domestic dog has been one of the most widely kept working and companion animals in human history. The word "dog" may also mean the male of a canine species, as opposed to the word " that exhibit a range of behaviors Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. Behavior can be conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary and emotions Emotion is subjective experience, associated with mood, temperament, personality, and disposition. The English word 'emotion' is derived from the French word émouvoir. This is based on the Latin emovere, where e- means 'out' and movere means 'move'. The related term "motivation" is also derived from movere, help prevent depression in the elderly. Studies also show some beneficial results from electronic pets such as Sony Sony Corporation (Japanese: ソニー株式会社, Sonī Kabushiki Kaisha?) (TYO: 6758) is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008). Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of's Aibo AIBO was one of several types of robotic pets designed and manufactured by Sony; there have been several different models since their introduction on May 11, 1999. AIBO was discontinued in 2006 and Omron Omron Corporation (TYO: 6645) is a Japanese electronics company based in Kyoto's NeCoRo; however, the therapeutic value of such artificial pets remains limited by the capabilities of technology Technology deals with human as well as other animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its natural environment. The word technology comes from the Greek technología — téchnē (τέχνη), 'craft' and -logía (-λογία), the study of something, or the branch of.
Television Television is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic ("black and white") or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin viewing among the elderly represents a significant percentage of how their waking hours are spent, and the percentage increases directly with age. Seniors typically watch TV to avoid loneliness; yet TV limits social interaction, thus creating a vicious circle.
It is Masthoff's contention that it is possible to develop an interactive, personalized form of television that would allow the viewer to engage in natural conversation A conversation is communication between multiple people. It is a social skill that is not difficult for most individuals. Conversations are the ideal form of communication in some respects, since they allow people with different views on a topic to learn from each other. A speech, on the other hand, is an oral presentation by one person directed and learn from these conversations.
Such applications have been with us for decades. The earliest, such as the "psychologist" program ELIZA ELIZA was a computer program and an early example of primitive natural language processing. ELIZA operated by processing users' responses to scripts, the most famous of which was DOCTOR, a simulation of a Rogerian psychotherapist. In this mode, ELIZA mostly rephrased the user's statements as questions and posed those to the 'patient.' ELIZA was, did little more than identify key words and feed them back to the user, but even forty years ago Colby's PARRY program at Stanford university, far superior to ELIZA, exhibited many of the features researchers now seek to put into a dialog system A dialog system is a computer system intended to converse with a human, with a coherent structure. Dialog systems have employed text, speech, graphics, haptics, gestures and other modes for communication on both the input and output channel. An architecture for a typical spoken dialog system is shown in the figure below, above all some form of emotional response and having something "it wants to say", rather than being completely passive like ELIZA. The Internet now has a wide range of chatterbots A chatterbot is a type of conversational agent, a computer program designed to simulate an intelligent conversation with one or more human users via auditory or textual methods. Such computer programs can also referred to as Artificial Conversational Entities within some specific contexts. Although many chatterbots appear to intelligently but they are no more advanced, in terms of plausibility as conversationalists, than the systems of forty years ago and most users tire of them after a couple of exchanges. Meanwhile, two developments have advanced the field in different ways: first, the Loebner Prize The Loebner Prize is an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the chatterbot considered by the judges to be the most human-like. The format of the competition is that of a standard Turing test. A human judge poses text questions to a computer program and a human being via computer. Based upon the answers, the judge, an annual competition for the best computer conversationalist, substantially advanced performance. Its winners could be considered the best chatterbots, but even they never approach a human level of capacity as can be seen from the site.
Secondly a great deal of industrial and academic research has gone into effective conversationalists, usually for specific tasks, such as selling rail or airline tickets. The core issue in all such systems is the dialog manager A dialog manager is the core component of a dialog system. It maintains the history of the dialog, adopts certain dialog strategy , retrieve the content (stored in files or databases), and decides on the best response to the user. The dialog manager maintains the dialog flow which is the element of system that determines what the system should say next and so appear intelligent or compliant with the task at hand.This research, along with work on computing emotion, speech research and Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) has led to the beginnings of more companionable systems, particularly for the elderly. The EU supported Companions Project is a 4-year, 15-site project to build such companions, based at the University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield is a research university, located in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. Ranked within the World's top 40 Universities published by Global University Ranking and constantly ranked amongst the top 20 universities in Britain and Europe according to The Good University Guide. The university has produced five Nobel Prize.
See also
- Digital pet A digital pet , is a type of artificial human companion. They are usually kept for companionship or enjoyment. People may keep a digital pet in lieu of a real pet
- Eccky Eccky is an online life simulation game, in which two people come together to create and raise a virtual baby. Eccky received won the 2005 SpinAwards for Innovation and for Best Interactive Concept
- Ludobot A ludobot is a type of artificial human companion: an entertainment robot, from Latin ludo and bot (robot)
- Tamagotchi The Tamagotchi is a handheld digital pet created in 1996 by Aki Maita and sold by Bandai. Over 70 million Tamagotchis have been sold as of 2008. The Tamagotchi is housed in a small and simple egg-shaped computer. Three buttons (A, B, and C) allow the user to select and perform an activity, including:
- Virtual Woman Virtual Woman is a software program that has elements of a chatbot, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, a video game, and a virtual human. It claims to be the oldest form of virtual life in existence, as it has been continuously running or in use since the late 1980s. Recent releases of the program can update their intelligence by connecting
External links
Categories: Multimodal interaction
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The companion to this mentality, as Larchet suggests, is the simultaneous deification and vilification of the physician. We approach him with unrealistic ...
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IST Results The cogniron vision Caption The cogniron vision a robot companion evolving in a house like environment ready to fetch an object in response to a human s request Credit laas cnrs usage Restrictions
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of the new . Companion. Driver System so that more of our . artificial. heart patients can enjoy a near-normal quality of life at home. Many of these patients can shop, travel, visit family and live life like people with . human. hearts. ...
