Thailand: Famous for beaches, cuisine and ... robots?

There's more to Thailand than spicy food, hot beaches and a rich culture. The country is now gaining global recognition for its fast-developing robotics industry, too. 

At this very moment, Thailand's engineers are creating "humanoids" that can save lives -- or accidentally kill you, while equipping others with attractive faces, voices and behavior. In one Bangkok restaurant, mechanical waiters not only serve your dishes, they perform a mean samba too.

More on CNNGo: Hajime Robot Restaurant

"This robot is female in form, at least, the external appearance," says Dr. Thavida Maneewarn, Deputy Director of Research at the prestigious Institute of Field Robotics while introducing her pink-and-white robot named NAMO -- an abbreviation for Novel Articulated Mobile Platform.

"Her voice is a woman’s. When we first designed her, we designed her to be roughly like a six-year-old girl. So we want her to have that ability, that level, like a six-year-old," Thavida says in her institute's robotics lab, where she teaches at King Mongkut's University of Technology. 

NAMO is a "semi-humanoid" and remote-controlled -- "basically like a puppet" -- with wheels instead of legs.

"She's designed to be a public relations robot, so her main purpose is how to be what, in Thai, we call 'a pretty'," says Thavida. "When you go to an expo, you have the cute girl who tries to sell your product. So that's NAMO. If she wants to sell food, she will do some cooking, tasting, things like that.  She can do the 'sawadee' gesture like the Thai greetings, or 'wai'. She can wave. She can give things to people."

More on CNNGo: Beyond the glitz of Bangkok's 'pretty' industry

Thavida received her PhD. in Electrical Engineering, in Robotics and Control, at the University of Washington in 2000 with a dissertation titled: "Haptic Feedback of Manipulator Kinematic Conditioning for Teleoperation."

But she also shares the superstitions of many Thais.

"I personally am really afraid of ghosts," she reluctantly admits.

"When I was studying in the States, I usually worked at night alone on the fourth floor, the top floor of the building, and I was the only person. Back then, the robot's name was Miss Marple. So I was programming Miss Marple. Every time, I would just worry that one day she was going to speak something that I didn't program her to say."

After completing her studies in Washington state, Thavida returned to Bangkok, the city of her birth. She now reminds students in her two-year Master's program not to believe in metaphysical forces over science.

"I will have to scold students like, 'Oh, don't believe in those things.' It is just sometimes when a robot doesn't work, they try to blame it on some kind of spirit, and they put flowers or burn incense, things like that, at the competition," and pray to win a prize.

"I try to tell them, 'It's OK to do it, but just don't believe that it is not your fault that the robot is not turning on'."

Training a robot not to kill you

Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov invented "Three Laws of Robotics" which emphasize that "a robot may not injure a human being."

But the "laws" are rarely programmed into a robot's code.

"They should be, but no one is actually sitting down and doing it. When I build a robot, we put things together and make it move, but there is no governing law yet," Thavida says. "I didn't write the first line of my code: 'Don't kill me.' I don't do that. So in theory it can kill me.

"You want a robot to serve you coffee, or work in a work place, so you have to make sure there is a certain safety protocol, that the robot should stop when it is about to smack into someone.

"When things go out of control -- like sometimes a robot is spinning, out of control, when we test it and something is wrong and it's spinning -- and things like that, can actually hurt people," she says.

Thavida points to a black metallic robot named Kanok, which has a day-glow pink wig plunked on its head for fun.

Kanok is a "humanoid robot," because it has two legs, arms, and a head, just like a human. For each leg, he has a lot of motors, so that he can walk, she says.

"We designed this guy to be fully autonomous, which means that we have no human control at all. He was originally designed to play soccer, so when I turn him on, he is just going to look for a ball."

Nearby, a "snake robot" rests on her laboratory's floor.

"A snake, or a chain-like type of robot, is quite beautiful because it can do various forms of movements. You can see a snake moving sideways. But with that same mechanism, you can do the caterpillar movement.

"You can use it as an elephant trunk to grab objects. Or you can use it as a squid tentacle. You can go through a narrow space. You can climb trees. You can climb stairs. Or you can even go through a pipe. So it is very versatile."