A human-like robot invented and built in Cornwall, named Ameca, made its first interactions with the public at a festival on Tuesday. This unveiling was a significant moment at the Cornwall Festival of Tech, where the event 'Ameca: A Robot's Journey to Creation' attracted about 250 participants to Truro College, eager to explore tech workshops, exhibits, and talks.

Ameca has made several appearances at events across the world, but the festival in Cornwall was the first opportunity for the public to see it up close. Some festival-goers expressed that they were "gobsmacked" by its range of expressions, while others found it "disconcerting."

Innovative Features of Ameca

Will Jackson, CEO of Falmouth-based Engineered Arts, which created Ameca, explained that its facial expressions and gestures made it stand out from other advanced humanoid robots. Mr. Jackson highlighted the focus on how the robot communicates, emphasizing its role as a platform for artificial intelligence development.

"The human face is one of the highest bandwidth communication tools, you can get a lot of information over," he said. "If we can bring that kind of capability to a robot it would make our communication so much more human-like, so that's the idea."

The Human-Robot Interaction

Interestingly, Mr. Jackson noted that Ameca was deliberately designed not to look too realistic. He stated, "You'll find the more it looks like people the more acceptable it becomes, up until a point where it gets very, very close. Then you get a big dip and people go 'I don't like that'."

This phenomenon touches on the 'uncanny valley' theory, where robots that appear nearly human can evoke discomfort because they blur the line between machine and human.

Public Reactions

At the festival, varied reactions were noted by the attendees. One woman interviewed by BBC Spotlight described Ameca as "a little bit disconcerting" because of how its robotic facial muscles moved and how human-like its hands were. Conversely, another festival-goer expressed being "gobsmacked" by the "amazing" robot and felt proud that such an innovation was made in Cornwall.