The border between the biological and the artificial has just become even more blurred. In Shanghai, the company
Aheadform Technology, the same company that presented the most realistic heads, unveiled the ELF V1, a bionic humanoid robot with realistic skin, blinking eyes and almost human expressions.
Designed to interact with people naturally and even emotionally. Unlike conventional metallic-looking robots, the ELF was built to live side by side with humans in homes, hospitals and offices. Your face is made up of 30 artificial muscles driven by brushless micromotors controlled with millimeter precision.
These motors operate silently, adjusting each facial movement with impressive fluidity, from the curvature of a smile to the subtlety of a curious look. According to Aheadform, the robot is powered by self-supervised algorithms integrated with LLMs and VLMs, the same technologies that allow AI to understand the context of a conversation, interpret human emotions, and react naturally.
In other words, the ELF V1 not only understands what you say, but also how you say it. The company explains that one of the biggest challenges was to avoid the dreaded uncanny valley, that uncomfortable feeling that humans feel when faced with figures that look almost human, but not quite. To achieve this, the company developed an ultra-thin bionic skin, capable of reproducing the texture, brightness and even the elasticity of human skin, in addition to a dynamic system for simulating expressions and generating emotions, the result is a face that reacts with lightness and credibility.
The ELF V1 blinks, glances sideways, raises its eyebrows and moves its lips in perfect synchrony when speaking, it can detect human emotions in real time by adjusting its tone of voice, posture and expression according to the situation, whether to comfort, respond or simply accompany a conversation, Aheadform believes that this is the first step towards emotionally aware robots capable of filling the gap between technology and human empathy.
Remarkably realistic, though I think it could still use some work on the facial movements. It still looks a bit like old CGI when it moves. It absolutely gives me the creeps.
You entered the uncanny valley.
Thank you
Thanks for your contribution to the STEMsocial community. Feel free to join us on discord to get to know the rest of us!
Please consider delegating to the @stemsocial account (85% of the curation rewards are returned).
Consider setting @stemsocial as a beneficiary of this post's rewards if you would like to support the community and contribute to its mission of promoting science and education on Hive.