Hiroshi Ishiguro

Hiroshi Ishiguro is a Japanese roboticist and engineer. He is a professor at Osaka University at the ATR Hiroshi Ishiguro Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories in Osaka, Japan. A notable development of the laboratory is the Actroid, a humanoid robot with lifelike appearance and visible behavior such as facial movements.

Professor Ishiguro is a leading figure in the interdisciplinary field of social robotics, developing increasingly advanced humanoid robots and exploring the fundamental philosophical questions about the nature of humanity through his work. He is particularly well-known for his work on androids, or humanoid robots.

By exploring how humans interact with the androids he builds, Professor Ishiguro’s work seeks to understand the conditions for love, spirituality, and other important dimensions of human life.

For about a decade, Professor Ishiguro has been collaborating with researchers at the Robophilosophy and Integrative Social Robotics research unit under the Department of Philosophy and the History of Ideas at Aarhus University. Since 2012, the research unit has been using humanoid robots developed by Ishiguro in various research projects. The Faculty of Arts also recently began offering a new subsidiary subject, Humanistic Technology Development, in order to encourage humanities students and engineering and technology students to work together.