In the movie Terminator II, actor Edward Furlong pokes the face of Arnold Schwarzenegger's cyborg to check for the machine beneath a fleshy exterior. Most people do the same to Geminoid HI-1, dubbed the world's most advanced android. The imposition brings a swift rebuke: 'Please don't touch me,' Geminoid says. 'It feels strange.'
First meetings with the android, a doppelganger of its creator Hiroshi Ishiguro, can be unsettling. It has the same gimlet-eyed stare and shock of unruly black hair as the Japanese scientist, and an expression poised halfway between irritated and quizzical. When listening to a question, it unnervingly tips its head sideways and narrows its eyes before answering in the voice of the distracted academic.
The human-like responses are the product of dozens of small, pressurised actuators buried beneath the silicone skin, and the voice is Ishiguro's. But visitors to Geminoid's home, a research institute in the government-funded ATR Laboratories outside Kyoto, sometimes think they're meeting the professor instead of his robot.
Even after it becomes clear that they've been hoodwinked by a US$300,000 metal-and-polyurethane lookalike, Ishiguro says people soon become comfortable talking to his creation. 'I have very natural meetings with students using this robot,' he says. 'Initially, some people find him a bit strange, but soon they adapt and treat him quite naturally.'
He says he hopes the robot, which is equipped with cameras and remotely operated via the internet, will be able to stand in for busy teachers one day.
'When I get old, maybe I'll put him in a classroom. Especially in Japan, students never ask questions and the department never checks whether I'm around,' he says, laughing. 'I think it's very feasible.'