A lot of work is being done here in the U.S. and overseas to create robots in the form of humans. While most of these efforts have remained demonstration-only, some have been created purely for prurient applications. There are many barriers to creating a perfect, human-looking and human-acting device. Barriers that will likely keep engineers and technicians tinkering away for decades before the perfect device sees the light of day.
I’ve wondered recently why we don’t see more effort being leveled at creating, and marking household robots that serve a variety of functions, yet do not specifically look like a human being. Is there really a need to wait until an absolute facsimile is possible (or affordable)? There are plenty of cinematic robots that have enough personality embued to them without appearing specifically human:
And an example where they threw out human forms altogether, yet managed to elicit an emotional response when one of the robots is hurt or destroyed:
I believe people would be accepting of non-human looking robots, if the benefit and cost were high enough to merit ownership. Take the iRobot company and their “Roomba” line.
Some care should be taken to make sure these devices aren’t completely abhorrent to look at. I for one will be keeping an eye out for what iRobot comes up with in the coming years. Science Fiction nostalgia fans have even made this craftsman’s dream a reality – he is building and selling licensed B9 Robots from Lost in Space. I’d like to see someone take the notion of the household robot down these lines – bring a functional robot into the home for people who may need assistance with day to day chores. There is a market opportunity here that is being missed for the sake of human narcissism.
Hello,
Ugh, I liked! So clear and positively.
Doggy
Japan seems to be rather forward-looking in this regard, partially because they’ve had friendly robots in their manga and on tv for decades, so culturally it’s maybe more acceptable to relate emotionally to machines (though this is entirely a naive sociological assumption on my part) and because of an impending demographic gap caused by an aging population combined with a low birthrate. I’ve read articles online about programs in Japan to introduce household robots and aides to take care of the elderly, and robot fashion models and robots in front of sex shops, almost all of which are humanoid or mostly humanoid (but not perfectly so, see Wakamaru for one example), because their function is to replace a former human position.
I think the biggest problem with the yearning for a humanoid robot comes from the expectations of sci-fi culture for what a personal robot *should* be expected to do, mostly tasks which would require, at best, a pair of arms (more would be unnecessarily costly, fewer would be function-limiting.) A Roomba’s great, but all it does is vacuum (though there is of course a Roomba hacker culture out there, I don’t know what other useful things they can get the Roomba to do) whereas most people’s idea of a “personal robot” would be something that could use a vacuum cleaner like a human being, and also cook your food, light your pipe, blather blather on.
I can’t imagine a really modular, general use household robot not being at least equivalent in terms of expense or value as a car. The sort of thing you only buy once every few years if your lucky, and if it’s got a neural net, probably something you’ve got to teach or train like a kid, and likely to be complex enough to need regular servicing. I also have a difficult time imagining any uses for a household robot that wouldn’t prefer a humanoid form to, say, the hassle of laying tracks on the ceiling. Though I think in most cases, the legs can be done without, that’s where the real vanity lies, the pursuit of bipedalism.
Excellent thoughts here, thank you. I forgot to mention one of the other downfalls of quasi-humanoid appearing robots. Whether they’re leaning more towards the mechanical appearance, or genuinely humanoid I know myself enough to recognize I’d get sick of a facsimile “face”. It doesn’t matter how pleasant it’s rendered (in fact, an artificially happy expression would make me want to punch it in short order).
You bring up a good point about expenses, training and tasks. Even Roomba owners have to clear their homes enough for the things to work properly without getting stuck. And in my case, I’d have to provide some means for a personal robot to ascend/descend stairs. This might mean modifications to my home, maybe in the form of a “dumb waiter”, to accommodate such a servant. So yes, this will be an investment, like a car. I imagine that by the time I lose the ability or interest in driving, I may be willing to cough up the money for such a servant (and imagine if it could be the driver too!).
[...] in a decent amount of time. Christopher Doll had a post up on his blog a few days ago about how ostentatious he thought human-looking robots were, an affect for the sake of retro-futuristic nostalgia, and I think he’s partly right about [...]
Great article. There’s a lot of good data here, though I did want to let you know something – I am running Redhat with the up-to-date beta of Firefox, and the look and feel of your blog is kind of flaky for me. I can read the articles, but the navigation doesn’t work so good.
Hey any chance you can shoot me a screenshot? I don’t have a Redhat/Firefox setup here to view from. Thanks!
… I didn’t know that post would do that, now that’s interesting…