October 21, 2013
– St. Petersburg, Russia – i–Free Company has provided artificial intelligence (AI) technology for the world’s first bionic human biorobot named Frank, created by the British company Shadow Robot Co. Thanks to this technology, the biorobot can easily communicate with people: it confidently recognizes voice requests, supports meaningful dialogue and even demonstrates a sense of humor.The creation of a bionic human has become a revolutionary project demonstrating the latest capabilities of bionics and prosthetics.
Biorobot Frank is assembled from modern prostheses that replace different parts of the body and systems of the human body: limbs, skin, bones, as well as some internal organs.
Interaction with a bionic person is carried out by means of speech communication. The biorobot is equipped with an artificial intelligence system, donated to the authors of the project by i-Free.
Supporting research and development in the field of artificial intelligence has been one of the key priorities for i-Free for a number of years. The company is the organizer of the AINL scientific and applied conference, and also actively implements AI technologies in its products and services. In particular, artificial intelligence is used in the line of virtual mobile assistants created by i-Free – “Assistant in Russian”, “Interlocutor”, etc.
In 2011, i-Free acquired AI technology developed by Vladimir Veselov, and continued its development. In 2012, this technology won first place in the prestigious international competition “Turing 100 AI Machines Competition”.
When the company Shadow Robot Co, which created the biorobot Frank, applied to i-Free with a request to use AI technology in its project, i-Free donated this artificial intelligence system to the developers.
Processing of all speech commands and requests received by the biorobot in the process of communication, as well as the formation of its responses, takes place remotely – on the technological platform of the company i-Free. The process of processing each request is almost instantaneous and takes a fraction of a second.
“Such projects and developments have always attracted i-Free: we are interested in discovering new areas and areas where products based on artificial intelligence can significantly facilitate human life. The appearance of the first biorobot is difficult to overestimate – it is in many ways a landmark project demonstrating the revolutionary capabilities of modern science and medicine, and we are glad that the creators of Frank chose our artificial intelligence system,” says Egor Naumov, head of the AI development group at i-Free.
The prototype of the first bionic man was the German psychologist Berthold Mayer, who was born without a hand and uses a bionic prosthesis. Mayer not only participated in the creation of the biorobot, but also became the host of the TV show The incredible bionic man, which premiered on October 20 on the Smithsonian Channel (USA).
Detailed information about the bionic human project can be found on the official website of the Smithsonian channel.
***