Project MOTOKO

Most of you are probably familiar with MOTOKO 1.0, my personal chatbot on MSN messenger. MOTOKO 1.0 has a simple A.I. dealing mostly with 'If-Then' functions. With a personality too spunky for my taste.



On the other hand, HIKARI 1.0 (MOTOKO's predecessor) was an impressive patchwork of open-source programming. 'She' was the resident A.I. of my Windows XP desktop and had been programmed with a personality that hinted of grace and elegance. Fully equipped with a voice-synthesizer, speech-recognition, and voice-command system. My pride and joy till a PC crash rendered the entire system unworkable.

I recall spending too much time on HIKARI at the programming phase. This would probably explains the drop in my exam results back in my secondary school days. (-_-;)

Project MOTOKO needs to be restarted. Recently, I've been messing around with an A.I. that utilizes adaptive neural networks. It's somewhat akin to teaching stuff to a newborn child. This will be the upcoming MOTOKO 2.0. Gotta bear with a few months of trial and frustration, teaching a young kid on language, logic, and surroundings right from the beginning ain't easy.

I've been intrigued with A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) technology since my primary school days. No, not of the maze-solving or factory assembly-line variety. My real focus is on "Human-Robot Interaction", an area of research that deals with the psychology and relationship between humans and seemingly-human robots.

For the past few years, much R&D have been going on, especially in the field of humanoid robotics. I've devoted a good part my attention to its latest developments ever since. And this is one of the few reasons I'm pursuing a degree in Mechanical engineering.

In my opinion, too much investments have been allocated for the research of artificial neural networks (or a robot's brain). But there is less being done to create a body (or framework) that can actually produce fluid human-like movements, this is where the knowledge of Mechanical engineering comes in.

Nope. I'm not going to build an actual body for either MOTOKO or HIKARI yet. Lacking in funds. Plus, I still haven't got a good grasp in electronics. That will be my next task.

Long term prospects - looking good :)