Turing Robot cooperating with Baihe presents the worlds' first "Relationship-Practicing Robot", aiming for helping singles practicing on developing and maintaining a relationship.
(Relationship-Practicing Robot)
The robot is characterized as a single young lady around 26 years old and 165 cm in height, with a beautiful face and slim figures, which are all the most popular features in single men's eyes when looking for marriage partners. Besides, the robot's skin is soft with temperature that makes her feels like a real woman. Even though the real robot is not available for purchase yet, users can already experience interacting with it online.
As an outcome of cooperation between an AI company and a match-making website, the "Relationship-Practicing robot" perfectly combined AI and bionic robots technology, as well as taking in baihe.com's numerous membership database. With Turing Robot's intelligent robot brain, it can communicate with human vividly and fluently, making the experience much like being on a real date with a human female. Also, the big data in marriage and relationships enables the robot to act as a relationship expert guiding its users better getting along with the opposite sex.
As far as I know, the first really explicit depiction of a robotic girlfriend may be found in Alice W. Fuller's story about a similar device in her 1895 story A Wife Manufactured to Order:
"Now, young man, what can I do for you? Want a life-companion, a pleasant one? Man of means, no doubt, and can enjoy yourself; a little fun now and then with the boys and no harm at all -- none in the least... Now, sir, I can get you up any style you want -- wax, but can't be detected."
"Do you mean to say you manufacture a woman out of wax, who will talk?"
"That's just what I do; you give me the subjects you most enjoy talking upon, and tell me what kind of a looking wife you want, and leave the rest to me, and you will never regret it. I will furnish as many 'phones' as you wish; most men don't care for such a variety for a wife -- too much talk, you know."
(Read more about the manufactured wife)
Another depiction of this possibility may be found in Fritz Leiber's mechanical bride in 1954:
Streamlined, smooth-working, absolutely noiseless, breath-takingly realistic. Each one is powered by thirty-seven midget electric motors, all completely noiseless, and is controlled by instructions, recorded on magnetic tape, which are triggered off by the sound of your voice and no one else's. There is a built-in microphone that hears everything you say, and an electric brain that selects a suitable answer. The de luxe model is built to your specifications, has fifty different facial expressions...
Fans of early cinema might also remember the female robot from Fritz Lang's 1927 classic Metropolis.
(Female robot from Fritz Lang's Metropolis)
I should add that Stanislaw Lem knew that sometimes men became entranced with women who were no good for them, and created the idea of the Femfatalatron, a robotic device that would deprogram males, in The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age.
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