robot k. dick

Wish I could get to the Wired NextFest in Chicago where Hanson Robotics and collaborators have created a Philip K. Dick android.

The sculpture for the face is pretty realistic, nice bags under the eyes, lines across the forehead and a greying beard – but the eyes don’t seem to have the intensity of gaze that many of his images captured in photographs do.

From the sounds of things they’re going to use the body of interviews with him to provide the source material for the speech AI. As Hanson point out this is similar to the approach used in his 1964 novel “We Can Build You”.

Of course PKD’s work has been used for a good few movies including Bladerunner, Total Recall, and Minority Report. One of my favourite novels, A Scanner Darkly, is due out on celluloid soon(ish) – screen written and directed by Richard Linklater. It’s using a similar rotoscoping effect to that which Linklater employed in “Waking Life”. Have a peek on the Apple QuickTime site.