Finnish WikiTalk

Talking with a Finnish-speaking robot at home (Youtube).

This video shows a Finnish-speaking robot talking with Professor Kristiina Jokinen at home. He first invites her to say English if she wants to use English, but she prefers to use Finnish.

He then tells her about a wide range of topics from Finnish Wikipedia. First she chooses to hear about Muumit, and asks to hear more by saying Jatka, then she decides to change topic so she says Tarpeeksi.

The robot can switch smoothly to related topics, but it’s more difficult to switch to a completely unrelated topic. He tells her she can spell the name of a unrelated topic by telling the first few letters. She spells K-I-S-S-A and then he lists the Wikipedia articles that start with Kissa- and she chooses Kissankello.

The robot switches to related topics when Kristiina asks about them. So she moves from Kissankello to Niitty, then from Niitty to Kulttuurimaisema, and from Kulttuurimaisema to Maisemansuojelu, and finally to Punkaharju.

When the robot is talking you can interrupt it by touching a sensor button on top of its head. When Kristiina touched the sensor he stopped talking, said Anteeksi, and asked what else she wants to hear about. She asked him to talk about Robotti (one of his favourite topics), then she moved from Robotti to Androidi.

The whole dialogue lasted about 12 minutes.