Tech upstart looks to create terrifying robot apes

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A new solicitation on the crowdsourcing investment website Kickstarter proposes an unusual thing: robots that bonobo apes can control.

The proposal was posted by researchers at the Bonobo Hope Great Ape Trust Sanctuary in Des Moines, Iowa, where software is being developed to help facilitate human-to-bonobo communication using touch screen devices.

By memorizing a series of symbols, the apes are able to use the software to communicate whole sentences — but that’s just the beginning, if Buena Vista University professor Ken Schweller has his way.

He envisions the apes one day using his application to control their environment, doing things like opening doors, accessing vending machines and even interacting with members of the public in surprising ways.

To those ends, Schweller says he’s trying to acquire $20,000 in financing to further develop bonobo telepresence robots, and has even built two versions of an ape-like robot that could one day interface with his bonobo keyboard.

“We believe that controlling robots might be a good way for the bonobos to interact with guests and visitors outside their caged areas,” he wrote. “They could play chase games or squirt guests with an an on board watergun. They could operate the robot out of site by navigating using an on board camera.”

The robots would also be useful for researchers studying bonobo behavior and language, giving them a tangible data metric to track and study over time.

While it may sound and look quite bizarre, Schweller is not necessarily a pioneer in this realm. The Dutch Organization for Scientific Research said earlier this year that it had created an online multiplayer game for humans and pigs, using two connected touch screen devices. Another application for Apple mobile devices, called Games for Cats, engages humans and felines in a similar touch screen challenge.

Schweller’s project, however, clearly goes further than that — because, after all, who wouldn’t want to be menaced by a robo-ape armed with a water gun?

(H/T: io9)