It may be centuries before scientists engineer a robot as sophisticated as Data from Star Trek: TNG, but they have at least managed to develop a robot capable of administering a simple wedding.
Meet I-Fairy, a 4-foot tall robot who looks and speaks like a pig-tailed toddler, but is intelligent enough to conduct a wedding. On Saturday, May 16, I-Fairy performed its first wedding at Hibiya Park in central Tokyo, where it brought together robotics professor Tomohiro Shibata, 42, and Kokoro-employee Satoko Inoue, 36.
The couple’s unorthodox decision to enlist a 6.3 million yen (approximately 70K USD) robotic wedding conductor stemmed partially from Satoko’s position at Kokoro, which is an animatronics company dedicated to the “development, planning and design, production, sales and leasing/rental of robots.”
According to the Associated Press, Kokoro is in fact a subsidiary of Sanrio Co., the international powerhouse responsible for Hello Kitty and the Actroid android.
Regardless, Satoko apparently had the time of her life. “This was a lot of fun. I think that Japanese have a strong sense that robots are our friends. Those in the robot industry mostly understand this, but people mainly want robots near them that serve some purpose,” she said.
Her husband Tomohiro was a tad bit more skeptical, as he noted, “It would be nice if the robot was a bit more clever.”
Unfortunately, I-Fairy is limited to preprogrammed movements and sounds, not to mention a meager 18 degrees of arm rotation. Plus Kokoro’s official I-Fairy PDF reveals that the ultimate purpose was to design a simple information robot capable of acting “as a communication tool.”
Suffice it to say, it doesn’t look like I-Fairy will be receiving any major firmware upgrades anytime soon.
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AKA
WOW!!!!! what a joke!!!!! get with the real world, BUT the bride was very pretty.
Melinda
. What was that all about… What! come on now give me a real person like a pastor to marry the ones who want to marry. I found it to be yes funny but very cold:(
lacekimni
I love all the talk about how Asian women only marry Caucasian men, when the real truth is Asian women always marry Asian men, as this beautiful bride displays, she is an a envy for all Asian women. Asian women shall always marry Asian men and stay loyal and close to their own race.
lol
some hint of jealousy in your speech i can tell. who is saying that asian women only marry caucasian men? what kind of bullshit is that? only some asian women marry foreigners but most marry their own race.
lacekimni
Yo bro, you missed my point, I was saying that there are lots of media romance articles and shows/movies that emphasize how Asian women just love white men, but as you stated a vast majority if not all asian women marry their own race…asian, I have no jealousy what so ever I am married to my beautiful wife and we have our second child on the way. I am just trying use this article to show that the Hollywood idea that Asian women only want to date and marry white men is very misleading.