This episode, we tackle modern-day robots -- and we're not talking about your roomba! Meet Rafael Hostettler, the legal guardian and project lead for "Roboy". Roboy is the robot of your (and Isaac Asimov's) dreams: an advanced anthropomimetic machine originally developed at the  University of Zurich's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Now Roboy calls Munich his home, where a truly multidisciplinary TUM team of engineers and students base research off of Roboy's unique humanoid features and evolving abilities to the fields of AI, computer science, neuroscience, bioengineering, avatar tech, social psychology, and more.

In our discussion, we cover topics ranging from how Roboy works and what he can do, to how humanoid robots can teach us more about ourselves; whether it’s how to perfect the mechanics of the human body or how society can - and should - welcome a future where automation makes much of our daily tasks obsolete. Tune in for some extraordinary conversation!

Links:
Roboy
TUM - Robotics research cluster
Human Brain Project
Books - Roboy and Lucy "Superhero Glasses" and more
ANA Avatar XPRIZE Competition

Related:
I, Robot - book and film
Paper - "From social brains to social robots: applying neurocognitive insights to human-robot interaction"