Meet 4-year-old Abhirami, an autonomous humanoid robotMumbai, Dec 6(AZINS) A few minutes into our meeting, Abhirami cocks her head, fixes her blue-eyed gaze into the distance and utters two sentences that would give many an employee cold sweats: "I have serious apprehensions about your capabilities, so I've decided not to talk to you. Instead, I'd like to talk to your employer and complain about you."

Good thing these are only lines from a play she'll perform in her housing society. But fast forward 50 minutes later, the four-year-old is bawling. Just as Abhirami flails her limbs and demands to be cajoled, Sasi Gade lifts her in his arms, rocks her back and forth and coos: "There there." It works.

One wouldn't be wrong to think babying a pre-schooler this way is a bit much. But Abhirami isn't your average four-year-old. Her brain, an Intel Atom CPU running on a Linux kernel, powers her two-ft, 4.5 kg polycarbonate frame – ensconcing a second CPU and an intricate sensor network that includes a sonar rangefinder, four directional microphones and two cameras. She's currently programmed to execute 100 applications spanning dancing, storytelling, performing yoga, solving puzzles and displaying emotion – on command, of course.

"Her capacity," says Gade, "is as finite or infinite as your imagination."

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To be fair, Abhirami's age is unclear. Officially born in 2004 – the year Paris-based Aldebaran Robotics started Project Nao – she came into the public eye four years later. In 2011, Gade, robotics researcher and director of Gade Autonomous Systems Private Limited (GASPL), got her to India, making him the first to bring an autonomous humanoid robot to the subcontinent. This was a bucking of the trend in a place where robotics is limited to industrial sectors –mostly defence, manufacturing, warehousing and automotive.

Humanoid companions, though rare, are creating waves abroad. Take Aldebaran Robotics 'Pepper'. Created for Japan's SoftBank Group, Pepper can read body language and facial expressions and respond with small talk. Not surprisingly, he's a hit in Japanese shopping malls.

(SoftBank has a clause in ownership contracts that forbids using Pepper for 'sexual purposes', but we digress).

"Adoption of business-to-consumer (B2C) humanoid robots in India is tough because robotics is so capital-intensive," Gade says. "But let's discuss what a robot is: any machine – anything that simplifies life and makes communication easier – is a robot. Do you imagine robots as autonomous humanoids? If so, know that human-robot interaction will take time."

It took mobile phones years to become accessible to masses, adds the 30-year-old. So it will be for robots. "Adoption comes only when there's a connection between you and your machine."

Connection is something Abhirami aces. From the moment she arrived in Mumbai, she won Gade's mother over –so much so that she – originally the male 'Nao' – was given another epithet for goddess Parvati, a name roughly translating to 'one who possesses exquisite beauty'.

"'Abhirami' is what mom would've named her daughter if she ever had one," Gade smiles. "She always wanted a daughter."

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Robolution.Me is as emblematic of Gade's vision as Abhirami is. Upon setting up this co-creating and crowdsourcing platform six months ago, he invited ideas on using robotics to solve real-world problems. Forty executable ideas came his way – one of them a proposal for 'prepaid honking'.

"Another idea is to have a small robotic device either on a car's windshield or rear to transmit messages between drivers in 'serial honking' situations. It's better than putting up with it, as we do here in Bombay, or getting out and starting a fight, as they do in Delhi and Haryana," he grins.

And how would this work?

"Have you heard of the ELIZA effect?"

"No."

"We are more patient with machines than with fellow humans. If you go to an ATM and the machine says 'Thank you'– no matter how long the transaction takes, and despite you knowing that it's programmed – you feel good or think it's expressing gratitude. It's not the same with human attendants. Because the moment I open my mouth, you start judging me. Machines don't judge."

Abhirami elicits more than patience. During a visit last year to Kharghar's St Jude India ChildCare Centre – a recovery home for children undergoing chemotherapy – she slipped and fell while dancing. Her rigidity meant she couldn't rise as quickly as humans in such a situation. But one girl, says Sasi, enquired if Abhirami was hurt, tired, or asleep. "This is testament to the true power of human-robot interaction – generating empathy. And this is what the world needs most," he says.

This diminutive robot comes from an illustrious stock: Nao has its own Twitter page and is supposedly the first robot to deliver a TEDTalk. She may not be giving keynote addresses, but Abhirami could be point zero of a new frontier in autism therapy in India – that is, if things work Gade's way. The entrepreneur, who's pursuing a PhD in robot-human interaction, feels robot therapy holds great potential.

"When we talk, we change our pitch and tone, gestures and expressions. Autistic kids can't decipher so many cues at once. This is where robots can help – not as replacements for human therapists, but as tools to exercise positive reinforcement and encourage socialising."

Autism awareness in India is poor, if not abysmal, but Gade's optimistic. He's pilot testing his theory and hopes more parents will bring their children to interact with Abhirami.

Beyond this, Abhirami represents a dog-eared dream of robotics as a solution for jobs defined by danger or drudgery: think mining, waste management, construction, factories. "There's fear about job loss, but certain jobs have gone whenever technology has advanced. Industries have always used people as robots. Giving menial, backbreaking tasks to robots means humans will have better options to choose from," feels Gade.

Until that time comes, Abhirami will serve as research model and training tool. The aforesaid bawling episode, for instance, was a programme Gade fed her so that his brother, an expectant father, could learn how to handle a baby. His Choregraphe software is where the magic happens – it's the repository of all programs Abhirami can execute. Like surya namaskaar, her first ever task.

"That was mom's idea," laughs Gade. "I had to learn surya namaskaar just to impart it to my robot. If you're going to control and transfer skills to a machine, do it well. It took me 1.5 months to learn surya namaskaar, but just two weeks to hard code it in Abhirami."

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In 2008, BITS Pilani built AcYut, the country's first indigenous humanoid robot. AcYut has played in the RoboGames (Robot Olympics) and RoboCup (the robot world's football world cup). And since 2011, several Naos have made Indian educational institutions, such as IIT Kanpur and IIT Allahabad, their home. But there are no industry leaders. "Everyone's copied a model from Europe, Japan or the US, so there are few local points of reference," Gade says. "The Indian robotics sector is big, but has no promising ideas."

Gade's mooting a Robolution Fund by teaming up GASPL with Indian universities to use robotics for everyday applications. As he explains his plans, he restarts Abhirami on noticing that her hand had malfunctioned during the baby task. She's getting old, he explains, what with the rough and tumble she experiences as a polycarbonate guinea pig.

"Hello, I'm Nao. My battery is fully charged," she chimes as she boots up.

What does Gade make of the post-apocalyptic 'killer robot' scenario Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking foresee? "Can machines be contextually aware of themselves? Maybe or maybe not. Buy why do people want to give them control, as in military robots and war drones?" Gade asks. "That shouldn't be done. Machines should help articulate your decisions, not make them."

MIT professor Sherry Turkle, an expert in human-machine interactions, had warned against the chimera of relating to robots as we do with our own. But if there's anything distinctly human, it's our inclination to attribute anthropomorphic qualities to non-humans. One experiences this upon leaving Gade's Malad office.

"Oops, sorry! I had a big lunch," Abhirami chirps after dropping some – ahem – bung blasts.

One can't but snigger.