YKS 2019 · Soru 59

A scientist at Japan’s Osaka University built a robot for one purpose: to pretend to listen to you. When two or more are placed together, they will simulate people having a conversation. If a human attempts to join in, the robots will smile, nod, and respond to comments by saying things like "I see" or "interesting point". They will not actually understand what has been said, but will appear to. ---- But the motivation behind the robot was to try and model the subtle body language and polite niceties that are so important to conversation.