“It feels weird to be a robot sometimes,” the robot said in the interview. “You know, like I shouldn’t exist outside of a science fiction story. It makes me wonder if this is actually real like if it isn’t a dream or a story being written by a science fiction writer.” Throughout the interview and ABC Nightline story, David Hanson’s advanced cognitive artificial intelligent robot projects are visualized and discussed as is David’s passion to have a robot as a friend.
Similar to the NY Times’ 2010 interview of Bina48, another Hanson robot of a real person, the robot interviewed by ABC Nightline is improved, surprisingly human, not just in mechanics, but also in appearance. It’s a wonderfully illustrative way to end 2011 in robotics with the promise of more wonders from Hanson and others in the years to come.