From Mimicry to Personogenesis of The Android ALTER Project

Research Term：2020/04–2021/03

About Project

In this project, we examine a possible communication between humanoid "Alter" and human. Alter is capable of mimicking human poses by watching the pose through his eye camera, and by using his internal system such as , self-simulator, autonomous neural network and his pose memories. One of our plan is to see how Alter develops his original behavior from mimicking stage.

Research Director

Ikegami Takashi

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo

Ikegami Takashi is a professor in the Department of General Systems Studies in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. He gained his Ph.D. (Doctor of Science, Physics) from the University of Tokyo in 1989. Currently, he is conducting experiments on androids (Alter 3), simulations of large scale void models, and experimental analysis of actual cell populations.

Message from Research Director

Research on artificial life is a study of the question “Can something be alive even if it is not formed from cells and DNA?” Why aren’t the robots that we know now alive? Because they cannot self-replicate? Because they do not have free will? Because they do not have their own motivations? " We will explore what lies between humanity and machines using the android ALTER in the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation.