“The mechanical buttocks may look like a new low for the world of Japanese robotics, but they may actually mark a new leap into the future of humanoid development.
Inventor Nobuhiro Takahashi programmed his creation, called “SHIRI” or “butt” in Japanese, to respond with different emotions to different human touches.
“I wanted to try and use a butt to reflect emotions - fear, joy and relaxation,” the 24-year-old Takahashi, a graduate student at the Tokyo University of Electro-Communication, told Reuters.
To get a robot to show fear, Takahashi would use a hit, or in the case of the buttocks, a spank.
The robot bottom responds to a hit with quivering. A slow wobble is its default state, the sign for relaxation, while a gentle stroke brings clenches that Takahashi said signal pleasure.”
(Source: reuters.com)
