In a glitzy exhibition hall in Tianjin, a man talks with what appears to be an elegant Chinese woman. In a gentle voice, the female figure speaks: "Sir, welcome to the 2016 Summer Davos."
Now look again. Dressed in a traditional white Chinese robe, the speaker, Jiajia, is in fact a robot, but one so realistic it's hard to tell the difference at first glance. She has red lips, shining black eyes and can be taught to interact with people in both conversation and movement.
This humanoid is part of China's broad effort to develop service robots, as the world's second-largest economy is seeing a surge in demand for them in the healthcare, education and entertainment sectors.
With an aging population and increasing labor shortages, China plans to sell more than 30 billion yuan ($4.6 billion) worth of service robots by 2020.
Jiajia was developed by a research team at University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui province. After being unveiled in April, she quickly earned the nickname "robot goddess" for her combination of physical beauty and deep learning ability.
Jiajia can naturally move her eyeballs and show micro expressions on her face. More important, her speech is in sync with her lip movements.
Chen Xiaoping, the director of the research team, said Jiajia marks a breakthrough for China's service-robot industry by adding a new dimension to artificial intelligence.
"Most domestic enterprises just focus on voice recognition, but we not only enable robots to move but to match movements to speech," Chen told China Daily in a telephone interview.
He said Jiajia can show micro expressions appropriate to what she says. When Jiajia says, "I am happy", she will smile, just as humans might do.
"The next step is to teach Jiajia to recognize others' facial expressions and make appropriate responses," he said.
It took the team three years to complete the robot. Among other applications, Chen believes Jiajia will be a good assistant for the elderly.
"Many seniors travel to southern China for health reasons. But most of these 80-year-olds are taken care of by 60-year-olds, because of a shortage of young people," Chen said.
USTC researchers also developed a domestic service robot known as Kejia, which prevailed at the RoboCup championship in 2014.
"Unlike the industrial-robot industry, which is dominated by four foreign companies, the service robot market is still in its infancy," said Luo Jun, chief executive officer of the International Robotics and Intelligent Equipment Industry Alliance, a Beijing-based industry association.
"Domestic companies can thrive if they manage to make breakthroughs in artificial intelligence," Luo said.
2016-06-27, China Daily,
