There are still a few bugs in the system — among them the 11-pound robot's waspish personality.
As he entered his final month on the International Space Station on
Monday, Alexander Gerst could be proud that he's helped given birth to a
healthy, if moody, robot.
Gerst, a German astronaut and
geophysicist for the European Space Agency, or ESA, is commander of the
space station's 57th mission. He's in charge of fellow astronauts,
including two from NASA, and an 11-pound 3D-printed plastic ball named
CIMON — short for Crew Interactive MObile CompanioN.
CIMON,
which was built by Airbus for the German Space Agency and runs a
version of IBM Watson's artificial intelligence, has a video-screen
face, along with a camera and a digital voice so it can talk with the
astronauts.
Eventually, CIMON is intended to display and explain information
needed to carry out experiments and repairs. But at this early stage of
its existence, its job is to be Gerst's friend. And as is often the
case, friends can be a little tetchy.
When CIMON was delivered to
the space station for its first test run on Nov. 15, it responded to the
command "Wake up, CIMON," by asking, in what can only be described as a
chirpy drone, "What can I do for you?"
In a video published
Friday by the European Space Agency and posted to Gerst's Twitter
account, CIMON successfully recognizes Gerst's face, turns 90 degrees on
command and helps Gerst with an experiment.
Direkt aus einem Sci-Fi-Film? Noch nicht, dafür eine erfolgreiche Technologie-Demonstration eines @DLR_de-Experiments, mit dem wir testen, wie zukünftige Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion im Weltraum aussehen könnte. Und #CIMON spielt sogar @kraftwerk! https://t.co/e30iIzdO68 #Horizons— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) November 30, 2018
In English: "Straight out of a sci-fi movie? Not yet, but a
successful first technology demonstration of a DLR [German Aerospace
Center] experiment, designed to test what future human-robot interaction
might look like in space. And CIMON even plays Kraftwerk on command!"
That
last observation refers to CIMON's dialing up "The Man-Machine," from
the album of the same name by the German electronic music pioneers
Kraftwerk, when Gerst asks it to play his favorite song.
Then things get interesting.
CIMON
properly acknowledges Gerst's commands to stop playing music and to
start taking video with its front camera. But then it says, "Let's sing
along with those favorite hits." When Gerst orders it again to stop
playing music, CIMON, sounding somewhat petulant, replies: "I love music
you can dance to. All right. Favorite hits incoming."
Gerst tries
again to stop CIMON from spinning records, to which it replies: "I
understood do you like the music. I understand that."
Gerst
explains to a colleague that while CIMON is properly playing the
requested video stream, it's not only "still talking about music," but
it's also stubbornly floating back to a position in the cabin that it
appears to prefer.
"He appears to like the deck position better," Gerst says in what apparently is the straw that broke the robot's back.
"Be nice, please," CIMON says in a softer voice. A moment later, it asks, "Don't you like it here with me?"
"Don't
be so mean, please," it says, before observing, in a fashion eerily
reminiscent of the HAL 9000 computer in "2001: A Space Oddysey": "Oh,
dear, I feel you. I can already hear your stomach roaring. Should we
take a look for when it is time for food?"
Gerst remarks that CIMON is "a little bit sensitive today" before shutting down the test run.
A goal of CIMON's creators is for it to show some personality, and Gerst concludes, "That's really a great demonstration."
The ESA agreed, saying in a blog post that "Cimon's developers and Alexander hope to see Cimon back in action again soon."
"While
no further sessions are planned during the Horizons mission for the
time being, it could mark the beginning of exciting collaboration
between astronauts, robotic assistants and possible future artificial
intelligence in space," the agency said.
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