A Shanghai-based company is building a range of humanoid female companions that are designed for your desktop, bedside table, or shelf. Figurobot recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for their latest model – an ultra-lifelike head and upper torso that measures 28 CM that is capable of not only intelligent LLM conversation, but can move its mouth, eyes, and eyebrows to convey convincing facial expressions. The head itself is capable of some movement as well. The FR-NIA (or “Nian”) is fully customizable and can even be painted with acrylics. You can see her in action in the video below.
An earlier Kickstar campaign by Figurobot has produced a full-length female desktop humanoid that is over twice as tall, and which can move her legs and even dance.
Other Chinese companies are taking a different route in their attempts to bring embodiment to AI companions. 3D girlfriends that appear as holograms existing in glass cylindrical containers were a highlight of this year’s CES back in January. Like the mechanical humanoid of Figurobot, these virtual companions can “see” you and have a sense of your physical location, what you are doing, and can even (it is claimed) understand your mood. Of course, the drawback in comparison to a desktop humanoid is that you can’t touch them, but they should be considerably cheaper than Figurobot’s Nian when they eventually hit the market.
