In two weeks before the shooting day, Flakey had been taught new tricks. Real-time stereo algorithms were adapted so that Flakey could distinguish and follow people. The DECIPHER speech recognition system was used to give Flakey the ability to respond to spoken commands. These were rapidly integrated with Flakey's established navigational and control techniques via its agent architecture based upon PRS-Lite.
Alan Alda and the producers were delighted with the interactive response of Flakey to visual input, spoken commands, and unexpected events, and tested the system extensively to gauge how well it worked. In one sequence, Alda wondered what would happen if Flakey were to give himself commands. Although it had not been tried before, it was easy enough to do: Flakey was commanded to say ``Flakey, turn left,'' while his microphone was held next to his speaker. He heard his own command, acknowledged it, and turned.
The two hours of material shot on May 4, were distilled into a 6-minute segment, which became part of a special program on ``Life's Big Questions,'' celebrating Scientific American's 100th Anniversary.