In a conference room at the Tokyo headquarters of the electronics
manufacturer NEC, roboticist Yoshihiro Fujita reached into a large
duffel bag and pulled out a rolling, knee-high droid. With wide,
beseeching eyes, it looked like R2D2 after a Hello Kitty makeover.
Fujita
explained that the prototype, called PaPeRo, had been designed for
communication, not chores; in nursing homes where it had been tested,
overworked staff members used it to entertain bored seniors.
The
robot’s camera eyes helped it memorize individual faces; it could
understand 200 words. Fujita instructed PaPeRo to tell a joke, spark a
conversation by asking about a notable day in history, and lead a quiz
game. He asked the robot to dance, and PaPeRo, supplying his own music,
sashayed and pirouetted on the carpet.
“If you ask him to fart,
he can do it,” Fujita said. The scientist asked. The robot farted. Then
the little LEDs in its cheeks blushed red.
Not every elder ’bot
is designed to be sickeningly cute. Twendy-One, which is being developed
at Waseda University in Tokyo, has the bulging upper body musculature
of an NFL tight end and the oblong face of E.T. “Many researchers have
focused on entertainment, but the technologies that provide physical
support to elderly people have not been developed so far,” said project
leader Hiroyasu Iwata.
At one end of his lab was a mock-up of a
studio apartment where Kobian demonstrated feats of strength, like
supporting an elderly person getting up from the bed, and grace, such as
fetching ketchup from the fridge or twirling a straw between deliicate
fingers.
In another Waseda lab, Atsuo Takanishi, one of Japan’s
leading roboticists, said that machines for the elderly should take
humanoid form because that would most naturally allow them operate in
our homes. What’s more, he believed that they should express themselves
like people because “in human communication there are a lot of emotional
aspects.”
Takanishi’s showpiece, Kobian, stood impassively in
the middle of the laboratory floor, then spread his arms skyward. His
eyes widened, eyebrows raised, and red lips opened wide in a convincing
show of surprise. Takanishi tapped the keyboard a few more times, and
Kobian became bashful, tilting his head away and raising one palm
slightly as if declining the offer of a beverage. He seemed magically,
irrationally alive.
Feigning emotions or passing gas might seem
like dubious capabilities for a practical machine. But such gimmicks are
in fact fundamental to the practice of robotics. British robotics
expert Noel Sharkey writes that “the old automata makers, going back as
far as Hero of Alexandria, who made the first programmable robot in A.D.
60, saw their work as part of natural magic — the use of trick and
illusion to make us believe their machines were alive.”
In the
common room of Toyoura Ohsuikai, a nursing home a couple of hours north
of Tokyo, a dozen elderly women slumped in wheelchairs and stared into
space. An unwatched cartoon blared on the television set, and none of
the women was talking.
Then the home’s attendants fetched the
robot. They looked like the stuffed animals of a 5-year-old girl’s
dreams — baby harp seals with large black eyes and bodies covered with
plush white fur. “Say hello to Paro,” an attendant said as he placed a
robot into a women’s outstretched arms.
“Paro,” the woman said,
drawing the seal to her chest. “How are you?” The robot came to life. He
fanned his tail from side to side, then swiveled his head to look up at
the woman. He squealed, then batted long eyelashes.
The woman gazed
down lovingly as if she were cradling a newborn. “You’re so cute,
you’re so clever, you’re a wonderful boy,” she said, as the formerly
moribund room filled with the sounds of laughter and the yipping of
seals.
One thousand Paros have been sold worldwide at $6,000
apiece, primarily for “robot therapy” sessions like the one at Toyoura
Ohsuikai. The goal is to get elderly people out of their shells —
interacting with the robot, chatting with each other, having fun.
Studies
of Paro and other robotic pets have suggested that regular sessions can
improve seniors’ moods, reduce loneliness, elevate quality of life
assessment scores, and promote socializing, all of which can help
prolong lives. Robot therapy has also been shown to reduce levels of
stress hormones, lower blood pressure, boost immunity, stimulate
cortical neuron activity and possibly even slow the progress of
Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Therapy with real dogs and cats has
been shown to have many of the same benefits. But animals are forbidden
in many senior homes due to fears about upkeep, bites and allergies.
Paro may be heartless — but he’s sanitary.
The scene at Toyoura
Ohsuikai, though, was both cheerful and creepy. Did a dearth of human
affection fuel an enthusiasm for robotic love? One woman said that her
family lived three hours away, in Yokohama City, and didn’t have the
opportunity to visit more than once a month. She said she liked Paro
very much, though the machine confused her. “Sometimes I think he is a
robot but sometimes I think he’s a real animal,” she said.
Much
more research has been done on the software and mechanics of robots than
on the psychological reactions of people we might place in their care.
But a handful of intriguing studies have been done with the simplest of
machines. In a study of 30 people who owned vacuuming Roombas, for
instance, Georgia Tech roboticist Ja-Young Sung found that people
professed love for their machines — “my baby, my sweetie” — and admitted
grief when a “dead, sick or hospitalized” unit needed repair.
Dutch
roboticist Christoph Bartneck found that people were much more
reluctant to “kill” a clever, helpful robot than an unhelpful one.
“We
are now in a phase in which the social status of robots is being
determined,” Bartneck says. “It is unclear if they remain as ‘property’
or receive the status of sentient beings.”
That people would grow
affectionate toward robots is unsurprising to MIT’s Sherry Turkle, who
has conducted long-term studies on the uses of robots like Paro in
nursing homes. “A finding that shocked me was how little it takes,”
Turkle says. “You don’t need a very complex robot to engender feelings
of companionship.”
Employing simple behaviors like reaching out,
responding to their names, and making eye contact, the robots are
designed to push our “Darwinian buttons” to delude people into feeling
that they’re not alone, Turkle says. And by soliciting and responding to
care — growing warm when held; stopping crying when given a bottle —
the robots win affection.
“People who meet these objects feel a
desire to nurture them, and with this desire comes the fantasy of
reciprocation,” Turkle says.
For better or worse, helpful and
companionship-providing robots that encourage elderly people to love
them are already here, with much more elaborate machines on the way. At
Toyoura Ohsuikai, one of the women clutched Paro to her chest, nuzzled
his face and cooed in his ear. “I feel very strong ties to Paro,” she
said.
“Like a friend?” an observer asked.
“More than a friend.”
“What word would you use then?”
“I’m not sure,” the old woman said, “but I just love Paro. I feel stronger bonds to Paro than to my family members.”
SEE PART ONE: http://bit.ly/h2d1G1