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Haircuts: First robot hairstylist to win the Hairstylist Test. The Hairstylist Test has a panel of...

...seven professional hairstyling instructors judge a blind test of 50 haircuts by a robot hairstylist and four human hairstylists (ten each).  If the panel of judges cannot statistically tell (they guess right as often as they guess wrong) which haircut was done by the robot and which by a human hairstylist, the robot wins.  The robot must have the 100 most commonly requested haircuts in its memory bank and, through interaction with the subject, can modify a design to the subject's preferences.  Subjects pick haircuts from a catalog of the 100 haircuts.  At least twenty of the haircut designs must be for men.  The robot and human hairstylists have a half hour to finish their haircuts.  The robot (plus chair for haircut subject) must not take more space than the space of a normal hairstylist stall in a multi-chair hair salon.  The robot must not also induce stress in any of the 40 haircut subjects any higher than that induced by the human hairstylists or the robot automatically fails The Hairstylist Test.

[This will challenge robot engineers at many levels: robot finger dexterity, 3D scanning, 3D modeling, inductive logic (reasoning from the small to the large: from each cutting of a small group of hairs to how those cuts add up to the overall haircut), and on-the-fly design modification.  Those and many others.
 
But possibly the hardest thing of this challenge is getting the public to trust a robot to have and use a pair of sharp scissors right next to their head, neck, eyes, and ears.  Not only must it operate safely but humans must believe that it will.  Expect research teams to have at least one psychologist help them on this issue, if not having a whole team of psychologists work just as many hours as the engineers designing and testing the machine to be accepted and trusted by humans.]
 
To win this challenge (and Future Challenges #1 through #12), the program must include a learning algorithm, must transmit at least once per operational day what it has learned to the company that developed the program, and download updates from that central server.

Future Challenges:

1) First military basic training base to replace all of its hairstylists and barbers.  [As basic training haircuts are "buzz cut" haircuts, this will be a relatively easy challenge to do.]

2) First US military basic training base to replace all of its hairstylists and barbers.

3) First naval aircraft carrier to replace all of its hairstylists and barbers with three robot hairstylists.

4) First US naval aircraft carrier to replace all of its hairstylists and barbers with three robot hairstylists.

All of the following can have a human receptionist greet and help customers pick a hairstyle for the robot to do.

5) First hair salon to offer a robot hairstylist for haircuts to the public.

6) First US hair salon to offer a robot hairstylist for haircuts to the public.

7) First hair salon to have all its hairstylists be robots.

8) First US hair salon to have all its hairstylists be robots.

9) First haircut chain to have all its hairstylists be robots.

10) First US haircut chain to have all its hairstylists be robots.

11) First major haircut chain (1,000 locations or more) to have all its hairstylists be robots.

12) First major US haircut chain to have all its hairstylists be robots.

Discussion:
If you would like to discuss this challenge with others, click here to go to this challenge's discussion forum.
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