Intempus Gives Robots Human-Like Emotions
Nineteen-year-old Teddy Warner, with a background in machining and robotics, is building Intempus, a company focused on making robots more human.
Intempus retrofits existing robots with technology that allows them to express human-like emotions through kinetic movements. This aims to improve how humans interact with and predict robot behavior. The data generated from these emotional responses will also enhance AI model training.
Why Emotional Robots?
Warner explains that humans rely heavily on subconscious signals from body movement, not just facial expressions or words, to understand each other and even animals. He believes robots need a similar "physiological state" to bridge the gap between observation and action.
Robots currently go from observation to action. Humans and all living things have an intermediary step: physiological state. Robots don't have fun, they don't have stress. If we want robots to understand the world and communicate with humans more naturally, we need to give them this missing piece.
Warner's inspiration for Intempus came while working at AI research lab Midjourney. He realized that AI world models, designed to understand spatial properties and real-world dynamics, were being trained on data from robots lacking this very spatial reasoning.
From Sweat Data to Emotional Robots
Warner's initial research using fMRI data proved unsuccessful. A friend suggested using polygraph (lie detector) data, which measures sweat, and this led to a breakthrough.
I was shocked at how quickly I could capture sweat data and train a model to give robots an emotional composition based on it.
He has since expanded his research to include body temperature, heart rate, and photoplethysmography (measuring blood volume changes in the skin).
Intempus: The Future of Emotional Robotics
Launched in September 2024, Intempus initially focused on research. Now, Warner is building emotional capabilities for robots and engaging potential customers, already signing seven enterprise robotics partners. A Thiel Fellowship recipient, Warner plans to hire and begin human testing. While currently focused on retrofitting existing robots, he hasn't ruled out building Intempus' own emotionally intelligent robots in the future.
Warner's goal is to create robots whose emotional states are easily understood by humans. He is confident in demonstrating this within the next few months.
