The Enduring Pathalogical Feminine Machine

Please visit my new blog at intimatemachine.com

Excerpt from an article I have written called:  Pathological Machine

Sean Redmond[1] 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.”[2]  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.”[3]  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.[4]  

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[1] Sean Redmond, ed., Liquid Metal (London: Wallflower Press, 2004).

[2] Ibid., 156.

[3] Ibid.

[4]  Fritz Lang, "Metropolis,"  (Paramount Picture, 1927); Ridley Scott, "Bladerunner,"  (Warner Brothers, 1982); Duncan Gibbons, "Eve of Destruction,"  (Orion Pictures, 1991); James Cameron, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,"  (Warner Brothers, 2003).

Would you like a kiss via a robotic messenger?

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?

EMA: Feminizing the Robot

Sega's newest robotic companion is named EMA (Eternal, Maiden, Actualization), a first-generation robotic girlfriend. Designed to overcome the stereotype of robots as rough, tough, and battling, she is a feminized robot type, designed to walk and talk like a female as well as behave in a sweet and interactive way. Her target love market is the 20-something Japanese male looking for companionship. Says Sega Toys spokeswoman Minako Sakanoue of EMA,"She's very lovable and though she's not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend."

EMA can sing, dance and even hand out business cards - but what makes EMA a truly intimate machine is that she is designed with a 'love mode' program that switches on after her infrared sensors detect and verify a blushing face nearby. At which time EMA will provocatively tilt her head upwards and utter the sound "chyu" or kiss (in Japanese).

Her name, EMA, connects in interesting ways with Japanese spiritual practice as well as Japanese history of robotics. In Japanese religious culture, ema refers to small wooden plaques on which Shinto worshipers write their prayers or wishes. The ema were left behind, hung at a Shinto place of worship, in the hopes that kami (spirit or god) would read them. According to Shinto belief, robots are not vastly different from humans in that they both share the same vital energies or forces, also called kami, that are present in all aspects of the world and universe. Giving 'ema' became popular around the Edo period (1600-1867), roughly the same historical moment when humanoid robots in Japan first emerged.

The history of the humanoid robot in Japan may also be traced back to the Edo Period and the masterful craft of constructing karakuri (meaning 'trick,' 'mechanism' or 'gadget') that were widely known and adored by the Japanese public. The most famous karakuri depicts a delightful child engaged in a traditional Japanese act of hospitality: green tea service. Thus, the character of the relationship between human and robot from the earliest period was interactive and social. “This unique interactivity makes the windup tea-serving doll a social-machine, in which the main purpose, like the Japanese humanoid robots that are its natural descendants, is communication with human beings” (Hornyak, 2006, p. 21). These early social robot informed the way Japanese culture subsequently came to regard robots.

Thus, the idea of a robotic girlfriend may not be regarded in the same way in Japan as in more Westernized cultures which tend to characterize female robots as hyper sexual but certainly not sweet and demure (think: female Borg Queen, Replicants and Cylons). Conversely, in Japan the view of robots as an extension of family, is evident even in early robot history, a perspective conveyed by Makoto Nishimura, creator of Japan’s first modern robot, built in 1928. “If one considers humans as the children of nature, artificial humans created by the hand of man are thus nature’s grandchildren” (Nishimura quoted in Hornyak, 2006, p. 38).

Japanese humanoid robots are typically regarded as and referred to ‘as’ persons, not ‘as if’ they were persons. This sensibility is evident right down to the lexicon of the Japanese language and the use of certain suffixes, such as kun (for boys) and chan (for girls and boys). These suffixes express a sense of endearment, intimateness, sweetness, and child-like or diminutive status and often reflected in the names of Japanese social robots (Robertson, 2007, p. 375). In short, humanoid social robots are conceived and marketed as “as adopted members of a household” (p. 382).

EMA will enter the personal robotics market in September, 2008 at a cost of approximately $175.00 US. It would seem that EMA, like Pleo (a companion robo-dinosaur), Paro (a companion and therapeutic robo-seal) and AIBO (a companion robo-dog) marks another moment in the steady evolution toward ubiquitous robot-companions.

Sources

Hornyak, T. (2006). Loving the machine: The art and science of Japanese robots. Tokyo; New York: Kodansha International.

Robertson, J. (2007). Robo sapiens Japanicus: Humanoid robots and the posthuman family. Critical Asian Studies, 39(3), 369-398.

Sega Creates Robot Girlfriend

Sega's Sexy New Female Robot Sings, Dances, Kisses

MIT's Social Robot: Nexi

Quote of Day: Rodney Brooks, MIT Professor and celebrated robotics researcher:

I don't think there is going to be one single sudden technological “big bang” that springs an Artificial General Intelligence into “life.” Starting with the mildly intelligent systems we have today, machines will become gradually more intelligent, generation by generation. The singularity will be a period, not an event. (Source: I, Rodney Brooks, Am a Robot)

Nexi is a MSD robot, which means she is Mobile, Social, and Dexterous. Like other MIT sociable robots before her, Nexi is designed to explore socially situated learning and to support research and education goals in human-robot interaction and teaming. Nexi represents another step toward sophisticated, intelligent robots being capable of interacting with humans based on verbal instructions. Nexi's face can display a wide range of facial expressions, video cameras and microphones enable her to see and hear, and eventually Nexi will have mobility made possible by a Segway transporter type device.



Nexi is a sophisticated and impressive robot to be sure, yet she is also perceived as aesthetically 'scary', 'emo,' 'creepy,' and 'sad' looking. Nexi's appearance is somewhat of a departure for the MIT social robot projects (Kismet, Leonardo, The Huggable) which tends to favor non-humanoid yet cute and engaging figures. Still, Nexi's enlarged head and decidedly inorganic (i.e. metallic) body seem to be (to me) a continuation of the Kismet aesthetic I have written about previously and may reflect a (Western) cultural bias toward aesthetics that lead away from the uncanny valley and deeply embedded cultural fears of monstrous machines (baby-like figures as an antidote to Frankenstein mythology?).

Nexi certainly makes it easier to visualize the look and feel of increasingly social (and domestic) robots performing assistive, therapeutic and affective roles within health care, eldercare and education. Henrik Christensen, director of the newly formed Robotics and Intelligent Machines Center in the Georgia Tech College of Computing suggests that personal robots will enter our everyday life in two ways, "One is the robotic personal assistant that may cost as much as an automobile. The other is through the addition of specific robot functionality to standard household equipment." Christensen cites iRobot's Roomba home vacuum cleaner as a low-cost example of things to come.

Social & Economic Implications of Social Robots

David Levy’s recent book, Love & Sex with Robots (2007) received an enormous amount of media attention, from Scientific American (March, 2008) to Hustler Magazine (April, 2008). Levy argues that our technological future will unquestionably include intimate and emotional relationships with robotic others. While much of the media coverage is cheeky and provocative, it also signals increasing public interest in partner robotics (a paradigm shift in robot development) development. Variously referred to as relational artefacts (Turkle, 1980, 1988; Turkle et al., 2006) and socially intelligent robots (Breazeal, 2002; MacDorman and Ishiguro, 2006), the incursion that roboticization is making into human social spheres promises to be far-reaching, including: domestic settings as caregivers, assistants and companions; medical settings in the form of nurse-bots and medical robotics and; military settings wherein military systems pair autonomous systems and human soldiers together on the battlefield. Research groups on the leading edge of studies in human-robot interaction pose serious questions that demand interdisciplinary approaches to technology and culture including: ontological questions that interrogate the social robot’s status as genuinely social creatures; the extent to which social-robots evoke life-like essence and questions of moral standing (Kahn et al., 2004, p. 548); ethical questions related to the authenticity we require of our relational artefacts and the kinds of relationships we regard as appropriate for society (Turkle, 2006, p. 360); robots as a new communication form (Zhao, 2006). But despite the growing prevalence of social robots in everyday life, little research focuses on the social impacts of human–robot relationships. Overall, relatively little is known about social robots and their effects on individuals and society, in part because they are typically regarded as mere techno-gadgets and therefore their social-cultural consequences are disregarded.

I am planning to attend (online at least) an interesting event at MIT tomorrow:

Soap Box Special for the Cambridge Science Festival
Tuesday April 29, 2008
Sherry Turkle and Cynthia Breazeal
6:00 p.m - 7:30 p.m.

Sherry Turkle, a professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT will talk about sociable robots, "The Robotic Moment and the American Heart: What can we make of our reactions to relational, sociable robotics?" She is joined by Cynthia Breazeal whose anthropomorphic robotic head, Kismet, is on view at the MIT Museum. Turkle is currently writing on the balance between intimacy and solitude in our electronically tethered lives, and has frequently lectured and been interviewed on the topic. Breazeal is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT. She directs the MIT Media Lab's personal robots group and is particularly interested in developing creature-like technologies that exhibit social common sense and engage people in familiar human terms. Breazeal has consulted on several Steven Speilberg movies.

Something interesting to watch & consider:
My Fake Baby Video Clip (3 minutes)

Relational Artefacts & Ubiquitous Robot Companions: Looking Forward to Social Robots

Does it seem difficult to imagine a robot as an authentic social companion? MIT’s Cynthia Breazeal (2001; Breazeal, 2003b), designer of an exceptional social robot, doesn’t. Her research shows that human social partners (of social robots) “generally apply a [human] social model when observing and interacting with autonomous robots.” Nor does Osaka University’s Hiroshi Ishiguro (2006), creator of perhaps the most sophisticated of all humanoid robots: “In our experience, the participants react to the android as if it were human even if they consciously recognize it as an android.” Indeed, policy shapers, sociologists, scientists, and engineers believe the time is close when interaction with functional, intelligent, and affective (Breazeal, 2002, 2003a; Brooks, 2002; Levy, 2007; Levy, 2006; Turkle et al., 2006) sociable robots will be an everyday occurrence. South Korea’s pioneering of a national Robot Ethics Charter reflects this confidence (Chang-Won, 2007; Yoon-Mi, 2007). Some regard social robots as a special 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; Zhao, 2006). But others question the moral veracity of human-robot relationships, suggesting that such associations risk psychological impoverishment (Kahn et al., 2004) or are disconcertingly inauthentic and therefore morally problematic (Turkle et al., 2006). What seems certain is that the emergence of social robots in everyday life will alter the nature and dynamics of social interaction and may ultimately give rise to a ‘synthetic social society’ (Zhao, 2006). Therefore, research is urgently needed to investigate the social and cultural impact of the coupling between humans and their machines.