- This robot named "Ameca" looks a little too real — and the internet is freaking out about it.
- While it's currently used for entertainment, its creators say Ameca is a platform for future AI tech.
- Check out "the world's most advanced human-shaped robot" move, blink, gasp, and smile here.
Videos of an eerily realistic robot named Ameca are going viral on social media, with users comparing the footage to the 2014 film "I, Robot."
While Ameca may look shockingly similar to the movie's killer robot VIKI (fought off by homicide detective Will Smith), it is not artificially intelligent — yet. Engineered Arts, the company building the bot, say Ameca is designed to be a platform for future AI tech.
Check out Ameca's hyper-realistic facial expressions and gestures here:
Ameca Teaser from on Vimeo.
The video currently has over 200,000 likes on Twitter.
—🆂🅼🅾🅺🅴 (@terrill) December 2, 2021
Some users think Ameca looks impossibly real and debated whether or not the video has been enhanced with special effects. Engineered Arts said "this is not CGI," --computer-generated imagery-- in the original video's Vimeo caption.
"Why is everyone freaking out about this? It's clearly CG. Made to look just a little rough, but still surfaces are too clean and movement is too smooth. Calm down. The day will come that the machines will, rise. But not today!" @vilmar22 wrote on Thursday.
Ameca Gestures from on Vimeo.
Engineered Arts describes itself as "the UK's leading designer and manufacturer of humanoid entertainment robots" and has worked with clients such as Amazon Prime Video, TEDx, and National Geographic, according to the company website.
The Ameca robot is known as "AB," or "Artificial Body." As Engineered Arts explains, "Human-like artificial intelligence needs a human-like artificial body (AI x AB)."
The company has a total of four different robot designs. Below is a video of Mesmer, a robot that might look even more realistic than Ameca.
from on Vimeo.
"Mesmer can display a huge range of human emotion. 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," Engineered Arts says.
Mesmer Duets from on Vimeo.