Watch IBM’s Watson-powered robot bust a move — and sing

By Lulu Chang April 10, 2016

IBM Watson Social Robotics Demo | HotHardware

IBM’s Watson just gave doing the robot a whole new twist. While dancing has never been a forte of machines, IBM’s artificial intelligence system is proving that robots really can have fun (even if it has to be programmed in). In a demo presented during Nvidia’s GTU technology conference, IBM Watson’s chief technology officer, Rob High, showed off a concierge robot named Watson Nao, whose many talents include singing and dancing — all in an attempt to humanize these humanoids.

The multi-lingual robot is powered by IBM Watson, and the AI has come a long way since winning Jeopardy back in 2011. Now, Watson is on a mission to show that it’s more than just a super impressive brain — it’s kinda like you and me, too! Nao currently serves as a miniature concierge at a few lucky Hilton hotels, where it’s helping answer guests’ questions. And of course, also serve as a source of entertainment.

If you ask Nao to sing, the robot happily obliges (though perhaps it shouldn’t). Taking a page out of the queen of country-pop’s song book, Nao squeaks out a bit of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” and even emulates some of her famously awkward dance moves (though we maintain that Nao still has nothing on Ms. Swift). The performance comes complete with theatrical head tilts and sweeping arm gestures.

Of course, outside of its questionable singing and dancing skills, the robot is a pretty impressive feat in AI. Unlike other automated assistants, you can ask Nao whatever you want, however you want. Thanks to its highly developed speech recognition software, this robot has an advanced understanding of normal human speech patterns. This means that you can have slightly more natural conversations with Nao than you would be able to with other robots, though you’d still only be able to ask questions if you want to elicit a response.

But who knows — now that robots are singing and dancing, there may be no end to Watson’s possibilities.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…

News

Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards

Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Entertainment

AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying

Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Mobile

4 simple pieces of tech that helped me run my first marathon

Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar displaying pace information.

The fitness world is littered with opportunities to buy tech aimed at enhancing your physical performance. No matter your sport of choice or personal goals, there's a deep rabbit hole you can go down. It'll cost plenty of money, but the gains can be marginal -- and can honestly just be a distraction from what you should actually be focused on. Running is certainly susceptible to this.

A few months ago, I ran my first-ever marathon. It was an incredible accomplishment I had no idea I'd ever be able to reach, and it's now going to be the first of many I run in my lifetime. And despite my deep-rooted history in tech, and the endless opportunities for being baited into gearing myself up with every last product to help me get through the marathon, I went with a rather simple approach.