Meet Jess the robot, who’s using a trick as old as the hills

Logic cannot comprehend love. But computer scientists expect us to believe that, within a few years, we will all have robotic relationship advisers to listen to our heartaches and propose rational solutions.

Documentary The Robot Will See You Now (c4) tried to impress us with a digitoid gadget called Jess, a so-called ‘experimental robot’ that was ‘currently operated with human support’. in other words, a bunch of producers in a backroom were writing all Jess’s dialogue and operating it via remote control.

That’s a con-trick as old as music hall. Audiences have been marvelling at fake automatons with names like the Mechanical Turk and the Mysterious Phroso for centuries.

This time, it’s all done in the name of Science... which makes the con-trick more convincing.

The truth is that we’re still decades away from developing artificial intelligence [Ai] that is capable of understanding complex emotional subtexts, such as what a woman really means when she says sulkily: ‘Nothing’s wrong!’

Most husbands have never been able to work that one out, so how could a circuit board?

Jess was introduced to a series of couples in need of guidance. one obese woman called Hayley was gorging on takeaways to dull the pain of her partner’s infidelity. The computer’s logic boards told her to try trusting him more.

But Jess was ignoring the obvious solution: Hayley could lose 15 st of ugly fat instantly — just by dumping the bloke.

Another young woman was afraid her gay best friend, Luke, had slept with her ex. Luke insisted he hadn’t. The computer believed him, but i’m not sure i did.

The knottiest problem appeared at first to be the most innocuous. Tom and Shifa couldn’t decide what to call their baby daughter, Francesca or isabella.

Quickly, it became obvious that this couple’s problems were in fact about as innocuous as the israelPalestine conflict. Tom was an atheist, Shifa was Muslim, and the moment religion was even mentioned she stormed out in tears.

Shifa plainly couldn’t stand Tom’s family. Tom refused to budge because of some childish bet they’d made before the baby was born. Eventually, to please the robot, they agreed to call her ‘Francesca isabella’ or Bella for short.

Tom and Shifa loved each other, but it will take more than a microchip to iron out their differences.

All the participants seemed to believe that Ai is already better than any human brain. That lesson is instilled young, as Phillip Schofield showed on How To Spend It Well At Christmas (iTV).

This consumer advice show was really just an excuse for Phil and a few celebrity friends to muck around with children’s toys.

The most popular this year is a doll with a cheap plastic bow in her hair and an ‘interactive’ voice. Her name is Luvabella, she costs £99.99 and apparently she’s already sold out in many shops. if that wasn’t robotic enough for you, how about cozmo the voiceactivated bulldozer — the size of a teacup, he costs £199.99. Meanwhile, the children brought in to test the toys were quite happy playing with crayons and empty cardboard boxes.

i’ve got a feeling that, secretly, Phil isn’t too fond of christmas.

He couldn’t hide his relief that, now his own children are grown up, he won’t have to spend hours assembling plastic toys.

The wine-flavoured bubble blower and the invisible drum kit left him apathetic, too.

But he liked the £10,000 rare malt whisky advent calendar. i think we can guess how he’ll be celebrating this year.