I would guess that Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro uses a web interface or a custom appication, and not ssh, to control his robot, but the idea holds true regardless.[1] For what he has done is rather disturbing: he has created a robot to take his place, to take telecoferencing to a whole new level. Constructed to look as much like him as silicon can, it has built in programs to fidget and mimic breathing. Suddenly our attempts at robotics have jumped straight to the humaniform.
Right now, as best I am aware, this sort of thing really only works, really only mimics humans, when acting as a remote control. Hopefully "our" attempts at artificial inteligence will continue to fail to achieve reality, but will continue in the realm of the psuedo-inteligent. Though if Mr. Neil Stephenson is right,[2] even that might prove to be of small comfort.
- Mr. Tim Hornyak. "Meet the Remote-Control Self" Wired News 2006-07-20. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71426-0.html
- Mr. Neil Stephenson. Diamond Age ISBN: 0553096095