astronomy

Hiroshi Ishiguro

Hiroshi Ishiguro is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hiroshi Ishiguro rather than just read about it. In short: Hiroshi Ishiguro (石黒浩, Ishiguro Hiroshi; born 23 October 1963) is a Japanese roboticist and engineer. He is the director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, part of the Department of Systems Innovation in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, Japan.

Key takeaways

Hiroshi Ishiguro belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hiroshi Ishiguro to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hiroshi Ishiguro from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hiroshi Ishiguro (石黒浩, Ishiguro Hiroshi; born 23 October 1963) is a Japanese roboticist and engineer. He is the director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, part of the Department of Systems Innovation in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, Japan. A notable development of the laboratory is the Actroid, a humanoid robot with lifelike appearance and visible behaviour such as facial movements.

Early life and education Hiroshi was born in Shiga, Kansai, on 23 October 1963. In his youth he loved oil painting and wanted to become an artist. Instead, he studied computer science at University of Yamanashi and later engineering at Graduate School of Engineering Science of Osaka University.

Robotics career

In robot development, Ishiguro concentrates on the idea of making a robot that is as similar as possible to a living human being. At the unveiling in July 2005 of the gynoid Repliee Q1Expo (in the cybernetic world, the term for female android, gynoid, from ancient Greek "gyne", that is woman) he was quoted as saying, "I have developed many robots before, but I soon realised the importance of its appearance. A human-like appearance gives a robot a strong feeling of presence. ... Repliee Q1Expo can interact with people. It can respond to people touching it. It's very satisfying, although we obviously have a long way to go yet." In his opinion, it may be possible to build an android that is indistinguishable from a human, at least during a brief encounter. Ishiguro has made an android that resembles him, called the Geminoid. The Geminoid was among the robots featured by James May in his 5 October 2008 BBC2 documentary on robots Man-Machine in May's series Big Ideas. He also introduced a telecommunication robot called the Telenoid R1. Hiroshi also uses the android to teach his classes at Osaka University of Japan and likes to scare his students by making Geminoid do human-like movements like blinking, "breathing" and fidgeting with his hands. Ishiguro has been listed, in 2011, as one of the 15 Asian Scientists to Watch by Asian Scientist Magazine. In 2018, Ishiguro was interviewed interacting with one of his robots for the documentary on artificial intelligence Do You Trust This Computer? Ishiguro and other roboticists from Osaka University designed the Buddhist android preacher Mindar in collaboration with staff from the Kōdai-ji temple.

Career timeline

He graduated the University of Yamanashi in 1986 and he graduate from the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University in 1991.

1994.10: Associate Professor at Kyoto University 1998.3: Visiting Fellow of University of California, San Diego 2000.4: Associate Professor of Wakayama University 2001.4: Professor of Wakayama University 2003.4: Professor of Osaka University

Awards 2011 Osaka Culture Prize Prize for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), April 2015 Best paper award at the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2009), March 2009 Best paper and poster awards at the 2nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2007), March 2007 Best Humanoid Award (Kid size) at RoboCup 2006 (Bremen, Germany)

Publications

Publications Hornyak, Tim (2006). "Android Science" (PDF). Scientific American. 294 (5): 32–34. Bibcode:2006SciAm.294e..32H. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0506-32. PMID 16708485. Kanda, Takayuki; Ishiguro, Hiroshi (2012). Human-Robot Interaction in Social Robotics. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1466506978. Ishiguro, Hiroshi (2020). How Human Is Human? The View from Robotics Research. Tokyo: Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture.

Papers "Publications". Intelligent Robotics Laboratory (IRL). Osaka University.

Film appearances Mechanical Love (2007) Ishiguro and his work forms a major component of this documentary on the interrelationship between humans and robots. Surrogates (2009) During the opening montage showing the development of the surrogates, there appears footage of Ishiguro and his Geminoid. Plug & Pray (2010) Ishiguro is one of the scientists featured in the film Samsara (2011) Robolove (2019) Documentary on the strategies of men and women involved with the creation of humanoid, android robots

References

External links

Official website Geminoid Archived 2012-03-26 at the Wayback Machine "Hiroshi Ishiguro: The Man Who Made a Copy of Himself". IEEE Spectrum. April 2010.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hiroshi Ishiguro

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hiroshi Ishiguro claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hiroshi Ishiguro before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hiroshi Ishiguro ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hiroshi Ishiguro

In research: Hiroshi Ishiguro appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hiroshi Ishiguro in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hiroshi Ishiguro is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1963 births, Academic staff of Kyoto University, Academic staff of Wakayama University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hiroshi Ishiguro outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hiroshi Ishiguro in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hiroshi Ishiguro means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hiroshi Ishiguro out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hiroshi Ishiguro in simple terms?

Why does Hiroshi Ishiguro matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hiroshi Ishiguro?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hiroshi Ishiguro.