{"id":758541,"date":"2026-07-12T12:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/758541\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T12:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T12:57:17","slug":"to-build-more-believable-bots-simulate-the-neurochemistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/758541\/","title":{"rendered":"To Build More Believable Bots, Simulate The Neurochemistry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Giving machines the ability to communicate nonverbally has real value, and [Drew Smith] clearly thinks your robot deserves better than an emoji. He shared a very interesting approach with his project Kindalive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kindalive is a simulated dot-matrix robot face that responds believably to input text, modeling and expressing both short-term and long-term moods. It\u2019s pure Python and modular enough to invite using it elsewhere, but that\u2019s not the really interesting part.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What sets [Drew]\u2019s project apart is the way he models eight key neurochemicals (including dopamine and cortisol) as the foundation from which to derive emotional states. That\u2019s an approach we certainly haven\u2019t seen before.<\/p>\n

Conventional sentiment analysis uses a large language model (LLM) to apply discrete labels to communication, but Kindalive doesn\u2019t do that. It even goes so far as to model the decay and interplay between its simulated neurochemicals to derive emotional states on the fly. It\u2019s more fluid and organic, and reflects both short-term and long-term mood changes.<\/p>\n

Physical representation of the emotional mix is done by altering twelve key facial movements (brow raise, lip corner pull, mouth open, and others of that nature) known as the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). These twelve elements combine to express emotion nonverbally with facial expressions. It\u2019s what drives the simulated dot-matrix robot face seen in the image above, and could easily be used to drive a real LED matrix, or servos on an animatronic face.<\/p>\n

Much of communication is nonverbal. Humans even weigh nonverbal higher when there\u2019s a mismatch between the content of verbal and nonverbal communication. So, there\u2019s clear value in having robots able to express themselves as such.<\/p>\n

Importantly, a realistic and human-like face is entirely unnecessary \u2014 something every Star Wars fan already knows. Cartoon eyes and basic sounds are enough<\/a> to make robots easier to relate to and work with, even if blinking is also important but hard to get just right<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Giving machines the ability to communicate nonverbally has real value, and [Drew Smith] clearly thinks your robot deserves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":["post-758541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}