Black Ice: digital issue two

At first sight "she" is little more than an ugly skeleton with big bulging eyes and teeth. But after 30 minutes' tender loving care she emerges with a flashing smile that can turn into a frown if you say something rude.

No, she is not an advert for the latest make-up artists or for a health food supplement or magic vitamins guaranteed to make any one look lively and fit. "She" is the world's first "face robot" according to her creator, Professor Fumio Hara, of the Tokyo University of Science, and she can express six emotions: anger, sadness, fear, surprise, happiness and disgust.

This is not bad for a creature which is not human at all but a complicated mixture of semiconductors, wires and pistons. She has plastic eyes that can only see with the help of two tiny video cameras mounted behind the eyeballs, false teeth- a skin that is merely stretched silicon; and a wig to cover her baldness. Even with her face fully made up an assortment of wires protrude from her neck, not really a pretty sight.

Nevertheless Hara believes she offers an important advance in the way in which men and machines have communicated in the past". His next step will be to produce a robot that can talk.

Hara stresses the importance of facial expressions in human communications. The professor points out that the ratio of messages that we transfer to another party by language is only 7 percent, whereas 55 percent of message transfer is done by facial expressions.

It has taken Hara 10 million yen (£62,500), three years' work and the help of his unpaid students to get this far. A year ago, he recalls, he had reached the stage where the robot could, with hissing pistons, change its facial expressions to produce a range of emotions his students could correctly identify. "Now I have succeeded in making the face robot able to read the facial expressions of the person sitting in front of her and to copy them (provided that they are the six she understands)."

He has a more ambitious program planned, but admits it will take a long time to create robots with the full range of human emotions. He explained: "First of all, I would like to harmonize the facial expressions and voice, so it can speak in an angry voice, for example, to match the angry face. We have already started the voice experiment, which will probably take five or six years, and in 10 years we can make a prototype.

"After that, there is a long road ahead. I would like to create a robot with a mind of its own, able to change its facial expressions in response to those of the person opposite it. So that if the human is angry, for example, the robot can make a face of apology. Hara's ultimate aim is to be able to create a fully speaking robot which may be able to work with human beings and to provide services for them, such as looking after the elderly".

It is still a long way to go to reach the robots of science fiction, which are stronger than human beings and almost able to outwit them. But a face robot is also a big step forward from the robots employed in advanced Japanese industry, which are only recognizable as strong or manipulative pieces of machinery. At Toshiba's science institute in Kawasaki, there are robots with stronger and more manipulative fingers than any human.

But none of these approach the humanoids of science fiction. No wonder, since Hara has been working on what he calls "active human interface" or communications between person and machine for 15 years. He points out that humans are complicated creatures. For example, it is reckoned that there are 44 different facial movements, 24 of which can be related to expression. For example, the whole of an eyebrow can be lifted or just the right or left side, a mouth turned down into a own or smile while a nose is wrinkled.

These gestures can be combined into emotions that depict sorrow or anger. But if the different gestures are not done in the right order or properly coordinated the emotion will not be recognized. What is second nature for humans was a complicated learning process for Hara's robot.

In the end he installed small aluminum gadgets on different parts of the robot's face, which operate by air pressure. Altogether these had to be capable of more than 40 different changes. Besides the obvious ones, they include wrinkling the nose, dropping the jaw, squinting and being able to know the difference between a blink and a wink.

Perhaps to his disappointment, a Tokyo beautician seized on his work to suggest its best use might be to help teach women to develop the "perfect smile". Others have said the robot may help entertainers understand and react to their audience or aid doctors, for example, in teaching autistic children.

Hara himself is reluctant to add a torso or limbs to his robot. "I don't have any intention of adding arms and legs," he said. "Because violence is also one form of communication and I do not want an advanced robot which may be used on the battlefield.''