Agreement between IIT and Osaka University for the development of robots: “The future is in the avatars”

The University of Osaka, Japan, and the Italian Institute of Technology have signed a collaboration agreement for the development of robotics of the future and its transfer to the market, with the aim of improving people’s lives.

The meeting between the two realities even saw Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, the Japanese pillar of robotics, arrive in Genoa, who visited the Center for Robotics and Intelligence systems accompanied by the scientific director of IIT, Giorgio Metta, having the opportunity to confront the researchers of the structure.

Ishiguro recalled that “in Japan people are willing to accept robots as part of society” and that “now the real challenge is to build humanoid robots capable of deeply understanding human beings and interacting with them in the best possible way. This is why I am looking for new collaborations and I think IIT is the best European partner in this area”. Also because the Genoese structure has long been committed to imagining how robots can understand our emotions.

For his part, Metta explained that “this is an important agreement because it further pushes the Italian Institute of Technology towards internationalization: the University of Osaka is renowned throughout the world and this agreement is a confirmation of IIT’s excellence in the field of robotics and AI”.

The signing of the collaboration, which also provides for IIT researchers to go to Osaka and vice versa, was also the occasion for the joint workshop Towards a symbiotic society made up of different species: humans, robots and avatars, which saw among the speakers, in addition to Ishiguro and Metta themselves, also Giulio Sandini, Daniele Pucci, Takahisa Uchida, Lorenzo Natale and Yuta Nakashima, who addressed issues relating to humanoid robotics: from the use of remotely controlled robots to the impact of humanoids on society, up to the artificial intelligence and communication between humans and robotic systems.