Robots Feel Pain, Take It Out On Dentists

Students at Japan's Nippon Dental University Hospital will be practicing their drilling skills using a new robot named "Simroid". The humanoid robot has internal sensors that trigger responses such as "ouch" and "it hurts" and a frown when it feels uncomfortable from the dental drill. And as soon as the bot learns a few lessons from humanity, the dentists had better watch out.

From the Article:

Naotake Shibui, a professor at Nippon Medical School, which introduced the robot in September, said Simroid can help dentists "learn how to communicate with patients."

"Treatment technique is important but it's also important to feel what it's like to be a patient," he said.

But in case anyone thinks the robot is too real, it also has a sensor on the breast area that keeps track if it has been touched inappropriately, an engineer said.

So on top of it all we're teaching the bots that:

1. Humans are helplessly inept at communication
2. Humans need to know pain
3. Intimacy is bad

Yup, these things are gonna go psycho. Watch a video here.

Thanks to Physorg