In a triumph for extreme robotic realism, Chinese scientists have unveiled an incredibly detailed animatronic woman with realistic facial expressions, who can also hold basic conversations.

Robot ‘Jia Jia’ appears to represent a leap by engineers at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) towards the ‘Replicant’ androids witnessed in the dystopian thriller Blade Runner.

The AI droid, designed in the shape of a woman, has been created with the ability to interact with humans through audible and physical expression.

The robot’s speech is synced with its lips, and it can blink and move its eyes.

Even minute details such as eyelashes have been included by the developers, making Jia Jia difficult to pick out from a crowd of humans.

The USTC development team spent approximately three years working on the robot, according to Xinhua.

Jia Jia can spout simple phrases such as “hello” and “welcome,” as well as more complex and offhand sentences such as: “Don’t come too close to me when you are taking a picture - It will make my face look fat,” which ‘she’ reportedly told visitors at the robot’s launch in Anhui Province.

Jia Jia is the product of artificial intelligence research led by professor Chen Xiao-Ping, who called the device a robotic “goddess”. The team plans to develop ‘her’ further.

“We hope to develop the robot so it has deep learning abilities,” Chen said.

“We will add facial expression recognition and make it interact more deeply with people.”

Xiao-Ping was part of the first Chinese team to enter the international robotics competition, Robocup, according to his university bio.

He is also the founder of the 2008 Kejia project, which aimed to develop a human ‘service’ robot that could pass Alan Turing’s famed 1950s think-test.

source:俄罗斯电视台RT，2016-04-16，https://www.rt.com/viral/339837-robot-humanoid-replicant-china/