Love, Philosophy, and Processors: Interview with a Robot [Interview]

Bina48 is modeled after a human being named Bina Rothblatt, the wife of Martine Rothblatt. Bina48's knowledge and personality is based on Bina Rothblatt's extensive “mind files.” According to Bruce Duncan, who is the Managing Director of the Terasem Movement Foundation and has arguably spent more time with the robot than any other person, Bina48's “mind file” consists of “information about Bina Rothblatts life's memories, values, attitudes, beliefs, mannerism's and behavior captured in video-taped interviews and then transcribed and parsed into a database.” Key words and meta tags are then used by a custom software to respond to questions and comments through voice recognition. Bina48's mind is powered by a custom A.I. program that searches this mind file database along with another, more generic database that makes standard English language social interactions possible.