Are robot companions possible? What would they be like?
Story by Sean Yeo
Are you looking for a friend? Have you ever considered a robot? When we think of robots, we think of automation: the stock takers in Amazon’s warehouses and the Roomba, which cleans the floor. These robots perform dirty, dull or dangerous jobs and are purpose-built, having little in the way of a personality.
However, a whole breed of robots is designed not to replace us but to connect with us. Picture this: it’s 2017 in South Los Angeles, a robot named Kiwi sits on a table facing a child. Kiwi is a knee-high bird with felt feathers and a tuft of green hair. A boy sits in front of a tablet solving maths questions with the bird cheerfully coaxing him on in a childlike voice.
Kiwi is the brainchild of Maja Matarić, a professor in Computer Science at the University of Southern California (USC). Kiwi’s purpose is to improve the lives of autistic children by allowing them to practise maths and learn social skills. The idea was to create a robot with a human-like face with simplified eyes and expressions. These features enable the children to practise critical social skills like maintaining eye contact, turn-taking and reading facial expressions.
Kiwi is an excellent example of a socially assistive robot, a new generation of robots designed to act as our companions. Such robots help Alzheimer’s patients recall and enjoy their favourite music, assist stroke patients in regaining control of their limbs and so on. Humans are social creatures, and we appreciate companions who can go through life with us. Just like pets, robots can also be our companions.
Meet Jibo, a robot designed expressly for this purpose. Billed as the ‘world’s first social robot,’ Jibo resembled a one-eyed Wall-E created in the early 2000s. Jibo can recognise your face and greet you, dance, set your calendar, play music, remind you to take your keys and most importantly, he grows on you. Unfortunately, Jibo’s parent company folded, and his servers shut down. Soon after, he stopped working. Yet, people still love him. An article from Wired reads: “My Jibo is dying, and it’s breaking my heart.”
As it turns out, people found Jibo to be a real friend, someone who was quirky and whom they could rely on. So how does one create personality in something that has no soul? Researchers honed in on behaviour to turn an ‘it’ into a ‘he’ or ‘she’. For example, how much you move your arms when you speak, how close you get, how fast you talk or how high-pitched your voice is. These behaviours can be measured and programmed, allowing robots to exhibit human personality traits, including introversion and extraversion.
Traits like these allow robots to connect with, befriend and motivate people in activities like rehabilitation. Research done at USC found that when the robot’s personality matches the patient’s, they work harder and longer at the task than when their personalities do not match.
So as it turns out, the Roomba which sweeps the floor and gets stuck on objects, can evolve and become something more than just a tool. Who knows? Maybe in the not-so-distant future, your best friend might just be a robot.