i-Free, a Russian mobile applications and games developer and publisher, provided the artificial intelligence (AI) technology used in the world’s first bionic man, a bio-robot named Frank, created by UK-based Shadow Robot Co.
The Bionic Man showcases the latest achievements in bionics and prosthetics. Frank was assembled with bionic parts replacing those parts and systems of the human body that are already in use in humans: limbs, skin, bones and some, but not all, internal organs.
This AI technology allows Frank to recognize human speech, easily converse with people and even have a sense of humor, according to i-Free. All verbal commands and requests that Frank receives are processed remotely on i-Free’s platform; the robot’s responses are formed in the same way, and each incoming request takes only a split second to process.
“The whole idea of the project is to get together all of the spare parts that already exist for the human body today,” The Voice of Russian quoted as saying Bertolt Meyer, a 36-year-old social psychologist at the University of Zurich who designed the bionic man. “If you did that, what would it look like?”
The bionic man debuted earlier this month at New York Comic Con, and will be on display this fall at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. A one-hour program about the robot aired on Sunday on the Smithsonian channel.
i-Free has supported AI research and development for many years and hosts AINL, a conference on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language. The company is committed to embedding AI in its products and services, especially its mobile personal assistant applications. In 2011, i-Free acquired AI technology from inventor Vladimir Veselov, and enhanced the technology to the point that, in 2012, it won first prize in the Turing 100 AI Machines competition.
Headquartered in St. Petersburg, Russia, i-Free also operates offices in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, India, China and Brazil and employs over 500 staff.
