A Russian robotics company wants to buy the rights to your face and voice for its ‘Humanoid Project’
A robot manufacturing company in Russia is putting a callout to normal (well, attractive and normal) folk to forfeit rights to their face and voice for use in its new robot development.
Promobot is set to create their most human-realistic robots yet, and this week posted an advertisement on its site, offering AUD$280,500 to anyone willing to give up their facial appearance, body aesthetic and voice for use in its latest robot development.
According to the company’s website, anyone with a “kind and friendly” appearance is able to apply, no matter what race or gender. The ad does stipulate, however ,that you need to be over 25.
Once selected, the winning applicant have a 3D model of their face and body made up for the robot’s external features and (here’s the harder part), will need to record at least 100 hours of speech material “to copy your voice”.
The company’s past clients have included Lufthansa and Vodaphone, who have had bots made for them, perhaps not human-like in appearance but definitely quicker than humans in their ‘thinking’.
For their new “Humanoid Project” there will be contracts in place, with the human simulation provider having to sign license agreements that allow the use of their appearance for “an unlimited period”. Which means the robot will likely live longer than you do.
“Our company is developing technologies in the field of facial recognition, as well speech, autonomous navigation, artificial intelligence and other areas of robotics,” Promobot’s website reads. “We have been actively manufacturing and supplying humanoid robots to the market. Our new clients want to launch a large-scale project, and as for this, they need to license a new robot appearance to avoid legal delays.”
So get cracking with that application, like a good bot ought to.
Antonino Tati
CREAM MAGAZINE 
One Response to “A Russian robotics company wants to buy the rights to your face and voice for its ‘Humanoid Project’”
Wow!
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