Japanese Robot Baby?

(picture courtesy of physorg.com)

It cries, sleeps, eats, and sneezes. But it isn't real. Unlike most robots known from sci-fi films and novels, this new technological creation is not designed to produce mass destruction or take over the human race. Instead its main goal is to multiply the human race. What kind of messed up psychological agenda is this? It's not as much morbid as it is necessary according to a few Japanese engineers at Tsukuba University.

The infant-like robot, Yotaro, was made as a strategic effort to further population in Japan as the nation confronts a demographic crisis; a pervasive low birth rate.

Witnessing the robot behave like a newborn baby provokes parental instincts: protection, compassion, and perhaps in some cases love. Aside from its behavior, its own texture, temperature and facial expressions play a significant role in the experiment. The robot is made of silicon to emulate a baby's soft skin and its "skin temperature" is warm similar to a real infant. Yotaro's facial expressions are due to a computer animation projected onto its silicon canvas. Yotaro is capable of projecting happiness, hunger, sadness, and etc. Facial expressions along with physical reactions are caused by amount of attention it receives from its parental figures. The more loving attention one provides, the happier Yotaro. The opposite is true as well.

The interaction between its volunteer parents and the robot instantaneously forms a relationship between the two parties. It is that specific relationship that is expected to spark a society's genuine interest in familial growth.