Recently, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) published an article: Would you kiss someone via robot messenger? Using touch sensitive artificial lips (a robot), called kiss messenger or Kissenger, the little cartoonish robots allow users separated by distance to engage in intimate touch (kisses) - perhaps to augment Skype or Messenger interactions.
The technology was developed by Lovotics and AI researcher Hooman Samani (I attended a conference with him a few years ago in the Netherlands). Lovotics research interests seem to be in pushing the boundaries of human-to-robot interactions.
According to the Lovotics website, Kissenger enables three modes of interaction:
1. Human to Human tele-kiss through the device: bridges the physical gap between two intimately connected individuals. Kissenger plays the mediating role in the kiss interaction by imitating and recreating the lip movement of both users in real time using two digitally connected artificial lips. 2. Human to Robot kiss: enabling an intimate relationship with a robot, such technology provides a new facility for closer and more realistic interactions between humans and robots. In this scenario, one set of artificial lips is integrated in a humanoid robot.
3. Human to Virtual character physical/virtual kiss: provides a link between the virtual and real worlds. Here, humans can kiss virtual characters while playing games and receive physical kisses from their favorite virtual characters. Further, Kissenger can be integrated into modern communication devices to facilitate the interactive communication between natural and technologically mediated environments and enhance human tele-presence.
CBC has asked readers to vote (no, it's not scientific) on whether or not readers might accept a kiss from Kissenger? When I checked the informal poll this morning, 13% (222 voters) of respondents said that yes, they would kiss a loved one or virtual character via Kissenger :). However, 75% (1291 voters) are not tempted whatsoever.
As a researcher of social robots and culture, I probably would. Would you?
I attended, for the first time, the annual meeting for The Society for the History of Technology. It was a great experience and I confess that I was rather academically-star struck. I had the privilege of meeting and/or listening to talks by the likes of: Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Misa, Rachel Maines, Rosalind Williams, Julie Wosk, and many other fascinating and talented PhD students and independent scholars. An expenditure well worth the investment.
My talk was entitled, History of Mechanical Woman: Automaton to Android. The (rather long) abstract is below:
The image of the artificially created woman as unruly and/or erotic has deep cultural and historical roots. Her significance has been, above all, anchored and shaped by cautionary narratives about the unintended consequences of knowledge transgression. Artificial woman appears in Greek mythology through the story of Prometheus[1] as the ‘beautifully evil’ Pandora.Fashioned upon the anvil of Hepheastos, Pandora stands as the prototype for all mechanical women who follow, as well as the punishment against Prometheus for stealing fire (knowledge) from the gods.The artificial female also appears within fifteenth century Jewish golem mythology, although unlike her male counterpart, the female golem is strictly a concubine.Substituting for a ‘real’ woman, the female golem’s primary purpose was to fulfill the sexual desire of her creator.Mechanical women, as erotic objects of desire, appear in literary works as well, perhaps most famously in the stories of Villiers’ Tomorrow’s Eve and Hoffman’s Der Sandman. Although referred to only briefly in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the threat implied by the creation of the artificial woman (i.e. the destruction of the entire human race) stands as a central, familiarly Pandoran, warning in the novel.
Less acknowledged is the presence and significance of the scientifically created ‘mechanical woman,’ standing at various historical moments as the very symbol of scientific prowess and Enlightenment and as an object of mass consumption and erotic desire. This essay argues that machines created in a female image during the Golden Age of the Automaton (envisioned as an automaton throughout the eighteenth century) and the ongoing contemporary projects to create machines in female verisimilitude (envisioned as android from the mid-twentieth century) have a good deal in common beyond their obvious functions as a reflections of intellectual and scientific prowess and mechanistic amusements. This analysis begins with a brief overview of the female-machine’s historical development from the eighteenth century before examining the continuities shared between these two periods in three key areas. The first similarity between the female-machine as classical automaton and contemporary android (robots whose bodies mimic the human form) relates to their emergence at critical ontological junctures which is suggestive of a historical moment in which the understood similarities and differences between humans and machines is in flux.Second, eighteenth century automata and twentieth century androids are both associated with periods of simulation[2] indicating moments in which the conceptual boundaries between humans and machines are fluid and therefore subject to more examination and experimentation than the periods immediately preceding and following. Third, eighteenth century female-machines and contemporary androids seem to exist on two registers: as articulations of intellectual enthusiasm and as expressions of erotic desire. Indeed, the history of the female-machine is conflated with issues of sexuality from the start and as such the automaton and the android tend to foreground the intimate relationships often experienced between people and their machines.
Technology and Culture "Technology and Culture, founded in 1959, is the preeminent journal for the history of technology. International and interdisciplinary, T&C publishes articles and research notes by scholars from a wide range of intellectual disciplines: history, sociology, engineering, law, architecture, anthropology, economics, philosophy, literature...."
I was now about to form another being of whose disposition I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness…and she…might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation…She might also turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man…trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged… I left the room, and locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own heart to never resume my labours (Mary Shelly - Frankenstein, 1818)
From the earliest days of film, story tellers have been fascinated with the image of the mechanical woman. Maria, the dark and destructive fembot of Metropolis (1927) requires little introduction and has thoroughly captured the cultural imaginary.
We may say that Maria is the prototype of all "bad girl robots" who follow her. Bad girl 'bots seem to be pathologically preoccupied with the destruction of humanity and this remains a dominant character trait of robot women in film. Unlike her male counterpart (i.e. Bionic Man; Dekkard; Robo Cop; etc.), she is seldom charged with keeping/restoring order on behalf of the State. And if she is, she inevitably malfunctions or rebels (or both).
Andreas Huyssen argues that technology represented as female monstrosity or maschinenmensch emerged at the turn of the 18th century as the literary imagination appropriated the image of the human-like automaton, popularized during the 17th and early 18th century, and transformed it from the symbol of Enlightenment, “testimony to the genius of mechanical invention,” to an image of terror and “threat to human life” that is so familiar to us today.
Blade Runner's (1982) Pris and Zhora are bad girl 'bots in that one is a mercenary and the other a "basic pleasure bot" (prostitute: but without pay) who defy rules concerning replicant (cyborg) autonomy.
Eve of Destruction (1991), features a robot woman created in her makers image. She represents a pathological threat to a major American city because she carries inside her womb - a nuclear bomb. Malfunctioning, Eve moves furiously through the city avenging her maker's troubled past, whose memories she now shares.
and Battlestar Galactica's multiple models of Caprica/Six, who come from a robot race of cylons that have very nearly wiped out the entire human race. Destructive female robots figure prominently in this narrative.
Additionally, that is Cameron of the Sarah Connors Chronicles who may or may not be a bad girl 'bot.
With such monstrous and maniacal cultural history attached to the image of the female machine, it is unsurprising that female humanoid robots (from science labs) are often conceived and encountered with a measure of trepidation and a lingering sense of foreboding. We might may say, following Sara Ahmed, that we have been historically oriented toward distrust of the female machine.
The anthropomorphization of roomba robotic products interests me. How do people anthropomorphize the roomba (name? dress? talk to/about)? Why do people anthropomorphize the roomba (what cues are they responding to?)? What are the duration and intensity of these practices.
Pleo is very interesting to me because I have encountered many Pleo inspired blogs that speak about intense maternal feelings experienced in relations to owning and interacting with this robot dinosaur. I am interested in exploring the intensity, duration, and nature of these feelings and interactions.
A relatively new robotic product, I am interested in way in which a technology such as this is integrated into domestic spaces. What feelings are elicited by the robot (guilt? motivation? affection?).
It's been a busy couple of months, working on two book chapters and one journal article. This impending spring will be focussed upon completing my comprehensive exams and perhaps I will leave book-like reviews or something here as I work through my reading lists.
Below are the abstracts of the pieces I have been working on:
Accepted: ABSTRACT #1 (Submission for the International Journal of Social Robotics)
Looking Forward to Sociable Robots This work examines humanoid social robots in Japan and the North America with a view to comparing and contrasting the projects cross culturally. In North America, I look at the work of Cynthia Breazeal at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her sociable robot project: Kismet. In Japan, at the Osaka University, I consider the project of Hiroshi Ishiguro: Repliée-Q2. I first distinguish between utilitarian and affective social robots. Then, drawing on published works of Breazeal and Ishiguro I examine the proposed vision of each project. Next, I examine specific characteristics (embodied and social intelligence, morphology and aesthetics, and moral equivalence) of Kismet and Repliée with a view to comparing the underlying concepts associated with each. These features are in turn connected to the societal preconditions of robots generally. Specifically, the role that history of robots, theology/spirituality, and popular culture plays in the reception and attitude toward robots is considered.
Accepted: ABSTRACT #2 (Submission for "Essays on Monsters and the Monstrous." Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2009)
Abject Cyborg Woman The female-monster is frightening for different reasons than her male-monster counterpart. Barbara Creed argues that woman is typically defined in terms of her sexuality, signaling the centrality of gender to the understanding of female monstrosity. This work considers the hypersexual, dangerous, and disruptive female cyborg figure, a film icon that has endured in the cultural imaginary for decades. Creed uses the term ‘monstrous feminine’ to describe an array of frightening female representations that range from the vampire and the witch, to the monstrous primordial mother, and notes, “[critical] neglect of the monstrous feminine in her role as castrator has led to a serious misunderstanding of the nature of the monstrous woman in the horror film and other popular genres such as film noir and science fiction.” This essay addresses this neglect, and considers the female cyborg in relation to feminine monstrosity and abjection. Following Creed, this work draws upon Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject as well as Sigmund Freud’s concept of the castrating woman. This paper shows that Creed’s list of monstrous women should be expanded to include yet another monstrous female, the cyborg, both abject and monstrous.
ABSTRACT #3 (Looking for new publishing options)
Pathological Machines: Gender Representation and the Female Cyborg Sean Redmond distinguishes between a humanist and a pathological cyborg. Redmond argues that the humanist cyborg works in collaboration with human beings and longs to understand the emotional complexity of humanity, yet never seems to quite achieve unity of “the corporeal to the technological.” Star Trek’s Data may be thought of as the exemplary humanist cyborg. Conversely, the pathological cyborg is relentless in its “will to power…The pathological cyborg wants nothing more than the complete genocide of the human race.” Pathological seems to best describe the dominant representation of the female cyborg on film and in television, most often characterized as hypersexual, dangerous, and disruptive. This work briefly traces the representational history of the female-machine (e.g. mythological creature, mechanical artifact, literary figure, filmic image), broadly outlining an enduring cultural presence that stretches from antiquity to our contemporary moment. Then, drawing upon Jeffrey Cohen’s seven theses of monstrosity and the connection of the feminine to monstrosity generally, I argue, following Barbara Creed, that the female cyborg is a monstrous figure and that she that differs in significant ways from her male counterpart.
Below is my submission for this year's SSHRC competition:
Everyday Intimate Machines:Human Interaction with Sociable Robots
The quest to create ever more sophisticated robots is intensifying globally.Increasingly lively, autonomous, interactive, and anthropomorphic robots are making their way from industrial and commercial contexts into everyday human social life (Menzel and D’Aluisio, 2000).Automated teller machines (ATMs) have given way to domestic service robots (e.g. iRobots: the Roomba Discovery Vacuum), robotic dolls (e.g. Ugobe’s: Pleo; Sony’s: AIBO), therapeutic pets (e.g. Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology’s: Paro, the robotic seal), companion-bots (e.g. Sega’s:EMA, Eternal, Maiden, Actualization robot), and highly advanced sociable-robots designed to engage in socially situated learning (e.g. MIT’s:Nexi, a Mobile, Social, and Dexterous robot).Human-robot interaction studies compellingly demonstrate that humans readily and routinely engage emotionally with technology (Turkle et al., 2006; Fong, Nourbakhsh, Dautenhahn 2003; Duffy 2003; Gratch et al., 2002; Breazeal, 2002; Cassell et al., 2000; Reeves and Nass, 1996).Yet other researchers express concern over the moral veracity of human-robot interaction, suggesting that such relations may lead to psychological impoverishment (Kahn et al., 2004), or are disconcertingly inauthentic and therefore morally problematic (Turkle et al., 2006) and risk fundamentally altering the nature of social interaction, giving rise to a potentially “synthetic social society” (Zhao, 2006, p. 402).Sociable robots require investigation because “they are not a medium through which humans interact, but rather a medium with which humans interact. Acting as human surrogates, humanoid social robots extend the domain of human expression, discourse and communication...” (ibid.).Thus, the main research question for my doctoral studies asks: “How do sociable technologies (e.g. sociable robots) function as social products: artefacts, environments, services, and systems through which new social relationships are created?”Guided by Turkle’s (concept of the ‘evocative object’ (2007, 1995, 1984), I explore the extent to which relationships with even simple sociable robot provokes new thinking, including questions about alive/not alive; person/nonperson; human/machine and what is particular to being human in a highly technologized world.
I align my work with theorizers of science and technology who note the absence of the constructedness of subjects and objects, resemblances and differences, and the embodied grounds of knowing and action within artificial intelligence (AI) work (e.g. Kember, 2003; Brooks, 2002; Adam, 1998 & 1994; Balsamo, 1996; Suchman, 1987; Dreyfus, 1963).Recent AI projects have shifted orientation toward embodied learning and social situationedness, evident in such descriptions as: “...a sociable robot is able to communicate and interact with us, understand and even relate to us, in a personal way.It should be able to understand us and itself in social terms” (Breazeal, 2002, p. 1).
The title “Everyday Intimate Machines” foregrounds my object of study as affective technological artefacts situated within domestic practices in the micro-social context of everyday life.Variously referred to as friendly machines (Crowley and Kanda, 2005), socially intelligent robots (MacDorman and Ishiguro, 2006) and relational artefacts (Turkle et al., 2006; Turkle, 1995, 1984), the sociable robot is designed to express the desire “to be attended to, of wanting to have their ‘needs’ satisfied, and of being gratified when they are appropriately nurtured” (Turkle et al., 2004).Some scholars regard the sociable robot as a new medium of communication that affects the way we see ourselves and relate to others and “extend new possibilities for expression, communication and interaction in everyday life” (Mayer, 1999, p. 328; see also Zhao, 2006; Turkle et al., 2006).Thrift (2004) suggests that sociable robots represent a site beyond conventional structures and sites of communication, while Hegel et al. (2008) contend that sociable robots serve as a new interface between humans and technology.
Orona (1997) notes, “grounded theory provides a framework for taking observations, intuitions, and understandings to a conceptual level and provides the guidelines for the discovery and formulation of theory” (p. 182). Using grounded theory (Corbin and Strauss, 1990; Glaser and Strauss, 1967) and complementary qualitative research methods, my project explores domestic practices that include relations with a constellation (or ecology) of technology (e.g. laptops, Roombas, social robots).Dealing with such little understood phenomena as sociable robotics in the home, it is improbable to “develop precise and fixed procedures that will yield stable and definitive empirical content” (Clarke 1997, p. 65; see also Clarke, 2008).Beginning with sensitizing concepts (Padgett, 2004; Glaser, 1978), “those background ideas that inform the overall research problem” (Charmaz, 2003), these guiding concepts are tested, improved, and refined (Blumer, 1954) within the research context, while the interrelationships between the concepts help construct theory “that better capture and reflect the empirical terrain” (Clarke 1997, p. 65).In this project, evocative objects, emotional machines, and robot ethics provisionally constitute sensitizing concepts.
Data collection involves traditional qualitative methods conducted in natural settings (Turkle et al., 2006; Lull, 1980) through observation and conversation with social technology users (Forlizzi et al., 2007, 2004; Forlizzi and DiSalvo, 2006) organized around participant observation and in-depth interviews.Ethnographic approaches permit the researcher to comprehend as completely as possible, with minimal disturbance, relevant communicative and socio-cultural habits of the research participants (Bruyn, 1966; Glaser & Strauss, 1967).Data collection will also include virtual methods, such as on-line observations and email interviews as well as documentary sources including those in the printed and electronic media (e.g. webpage contents, discussion threads in mailing lists, conversation in online chat room etc.).
Completed coursework at Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication provides a strong background in Science, Society, and Risk theory (Dr. William Leiss, Spring 2007); Somatechnics: Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and Technology (Dr. Susan Stryker, Fall 2007); and Frankfurt School: A Critical Theory of Culture, Communication and Society (Dr. Shane Gunster, Winter 2008).Additionally, my comprehensive exam areas (in progress) provide me with a deep theoretical grounding in the areas of ‘feminist perspectives on science and technology’ and ‘theories of technology and society’.My senior supervisor, Dr. Jan Marontate together with committee members Dr. Kirsten McAllister (Technology, The Body, Knowledge, Summer 2004) and Dr. Peter Chow-White (Social Construction of Communication Technologies, Fall 2007) will provide solid guidance in my research.Since beginning my doctoral studies at Simon Fraser University, I have maintained a consistent GPA of 4.00 (“A”).I am also one of the volunteer founders and editors of Stream: Culture/Politics/Technology, a peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal published by the Communication Graduate Student Caucus at Simon Fraser University.
Over the course of this year (2008), I have complemented my studies with conference presentations in line with my research interests.Notably, I have presented at (1) Canadian Communication Association. “Hacking, Hacktivism and Women: Hacking the Shadow Myth of Technology,” University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (June 2008); (2) The 1st Annual Conference on Human-Robot Personal Relationships. “Looking Forward to Sociable Robots,” Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands (June, 2008); and (3) The 6th Global Conference Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil. “Abject Cyborg Woman,” Mansfield College, Oxford, UK (September, 2008).I would like to note that “Looking Forward to Sociable Robots” has been submitted for a special issue of International Journal of Social Robotics and “Abject Cyborg Woman” is nominated as a selected conference paper to be developed for future publication.Finally, as an undergraduate student I co-authored an article which originated from a course paper entitled, The Ever Entangling Web: A Study of Ideologies and Discourses in Advertising to Women (Journal of Advertising, 28(2), 33-49) which has subsequently been republished as a chapter in the book Readings in Advertising, Society, and Consumer Culture (2007).As co-author, I conducted all of the semi-structured long interviews, transcribed, and assisted in the writing, editing, and revising process.
I am on schedule to begin this dissertation by mid 2009.My hope is to better understand the socio-cultural impact of emerging sociable robots as they continue their encroachment into intimate spaces through therapeutic, emotional, social, companion, and surrogate relationships with human-users.With the increasing number of service robots currently in operation, combined with forecasted demographic shifts in Japan, Europe, and the North America it is clear that there is a rapidly increasing ecology of “machines to live with” (Thrift 2004, p. 470; Brooks, 2002). This study will contribute to emerging scholarship that seeks to make sense of interactions between people and sociable robots outside the laboratory and “in the wild” (Sabanovic et al., 2006) and will contribute to understanding how people will negotiate with sociable robots’ within progressively intimate spaces.
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The further a device is removed from human control, the more authentically mechanical it seems, and the whole trend in technology has been to devise machines that are less and less under direct human control and more and more seem to have the beginning of a will of their own.A chipped pebble is almost part of the hand it never leaves.A thrown spear declares a sort of independence the moment it is released. (Asimov, 1981, p. 154)
Many highly sophisticated robot projects are presently in development. The UK’s National Health Service has already used robots called Da Vinci and Zeus to perform surgeries at Guy’s and St. Thomas Foundation Trust in London (Habershon and Woods, 2006; Wilson, 2006). Advanced versions of humanoid robots are expected to assume domestic responsibilities and assist in the care of the elderly and children in as few as 20 years. At Tokyo’s University of Science, visitors are greeted by a robo-receptionist dressed in a university uniform who is capable of answering questions and appears to grow bored in the absence of something to occupy herself (Doherty, 2007). So-called nursebots are expected to be functioning in Japanese hospital wards and will be capable of ensuring patients have taken their medication and alert other medical staff if a patients vital signs appear to deteriorate (Doherty, 2007).
As robotics becomes a leading field in science and technology, the nascent field of roboethics, (ethics applied to robotics governing the design, construction, and use of the robots) has also emerged. There is a growing chorus of voices that insist that as robots are created with increasingly more intelligence and autonomy, society must start considering the way our evolving human-robot relationships inevitably open up to larger debates relating to the obligations and responsibilities we ought to have toward our machines and our machines toward us.
Such dialogue has already begun, evidenced in the emergence of such initiatives as the Euron Roboethic Roadmap, developed by more than 50 scientists and technologists, in many fields of investigations from sciences and humanities who are responding to the perceived need for discussion and development of an ethical framework that may eventually serve as a useful guideline for the design, manufacturing, and use of robots.
Similarly, the South Korean Robot Ethics Charter is a highly anticipated document set to be released sometime in early 2009. The South Korean Charter is a first attempt by a panel of futurists, science fiction authors, government officials, robotics professors, psychology experts and medical doctors to develop a preliminary “set of ethical guidelines concerning the roles and functions of robots, as robots are expected to develop strong intelligence in the near future” (Chang-Won, 2007; Yoon-Mi, 2007).
But the field is anything but set, with differing and conflicting views about the future status of robots in play, each outlook dictating its own unique ethical frame.For example, if robots are regarded as nothing more than smart machines or clever tools, questions of consciousness, free will, and agency simply do not emerge and neither do questions of obligation and responsibility.Under such a view, Asimov’s three laws of robotics would suffice as a guiding ethical outline.
However, some roboethicists insist that these tenets are not appropriate “for our magnificent robots.These laws are for slaves” (Coleman, 2001; Gips, 1995, p. 243).Alternatively, robots imagined as a ‘magnificent’ new species suggests that machines will ultimately “exceed in the moral as well as the intellectual dimension” (Veruggio, 2006, p. 24, italics in original).Therefore we require ethical approaches that move beyond classical moral theory and are better able to deal with emerging, yet to be resolved, ethical/moral problems related to the surfacing of new technological subjects that can no longer be easily classified as mere tools but perhaps as new species of agents, companions, and avatars (Floridi and Sanders, 2001).
Whether you find the idea of human and robot co-mingling intriguing or horrendous, one thing is for certain, the future of robots will doubtlessly include them being ever more intelligent, interactive, and intimate and as such, situations are sure to arise in which we do not have adequate ethically based policies in place to guide us.The probability that robots will be widely accepted in some social and cultural spaces seems incontestable.Indeed, roboethicists imagine that the humanoid robot will be used as sexual surrogates in settings which will range from sexual entertainment to sexual therapy (Veruggio, p. 37).Says Robert J. Sawyer, Canadian science fiction writer, “What’s weird is how biological entities change their behaviour when in the company of robots.When robots start interacting with us, we’ll probably show as much resistance to their influence as we have to iPods, cell phones, and TV” (quoted in Nickerson, 2007). At the same time others insist that we live in a time in which “ethic as usual” will not suffice. Related, researchers have begun to question the moral veracity of human-robot relationships, suggesting that such relations risk being psychologically impoverished from a moral perspective (Kahn et al., 2004) or disconcertingly inauthentic and therefore morally problematic (Turkle et al., 2006).As the future increasingly promises to look like a scene out of Asimov’s I-Robot, it is my fervent hope that we take seriously Donna Haraway’s plea that we take pleasure as well as responsibility in our coupling with new technology.
Sources:
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Floridi, L. and J.W. Sanders (2001). Artificial evil and the foundation of computer ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 3, 55-66.
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