Yep, scientists at UC San Diego seem to have found a way around the uncanny valley problem (the more “human” a robot, the creepier it gets) by creating an android that giggles. According to New Scientist, the test subjects – a group of preschool children – accepted the robot as a friend once it started responding to new things – or to being patted on the head – by laughing:
Eventually, the children seemed to care about the robot’s well being. They helped it up when it fell, and played “care-taking” games with it – most commonly, when QRIO’s batteries ran out of juice and it lay down, a toddler would come up and cover it with a blanket and say “night, night”. Altering QRIO’s behaviour also changed the children’s attitude towards the robot. When the researchers programmed QRIO to spend all its time dancing, the kids quickly lost interest. When the robot went back to its old self, the kids again treated it like a peer again.
“The study shows that current technology is very close to being able to produce robots able to bond with toddlers, at least over long periods of time,” says Movellan.
There’s video of QRIO (pronounced “curio”) at the link.