Erica the robot to become TV news anchor in Japan

ROBOTS are bound to take over everyday routine jobs of humans — from customer service to engineers and lawyers. Now there’s a creepy real-life robot that’s dedicated to being a leading TV news anchor in Japan.

Meet Erica, she is described as a beautiful 23-yearold girl, who is warm and caring, and may even soon have an independent consciousness, says her father and creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Director of Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University.

She’s also 166 cm tall and is a mix of JapaneseEuropean. Ishiguro claims, Erica is the “most beautiful and intelligent” humanoid in the world. Like most teenagers, Erica also has a sense of humour and can tell jokes, though, her jokes are still a bit awkward and not that funny. She’s also so real-life like that she could even have a soul. He’s also teaching Erica how to develop a sense of compassion as that plays a part in journalists’ ability to relate to people in the news.

Erica has also proved she can read off teleprompters while sitting behind the newsdesk, making her a perfect candidate for being a TV news anchor. Erica’s not ready for her primetime spot on a major news network just yet but could make her debut as soon as Spring.

When she was much younger, she wanted to be a receptionist, but later developed more aspirations of becoming a TV news anchor. This isn’t the first news and storyteller robot that Ishiguro has created. He’s been known to make other humanoid robots with lifelike expressions, similar to real people.