Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking Heater, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says, when the
Speaker 1: wind blows, the cradle will rock. I'm Joe McCormick and
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Voglon and our host Jonathan Strickland is not
Speaker 1: with us today because he is out having a very
Speaker 1: futuristic procedure today. Yeah, he's getting his eyes lasered. Sounds
Speaker 1: pretty cool, pu pu. He reported in the surgery went
Speaker 1: well and he is in recovery doing fine so well.
Speaker 1: So while he is convalescing, we thought we would do
Speaker 1: a listener request podcast. So today's topic request comes from
Speaker 1: our listener Brian in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Brian wanted to
Speaker 1: hear about what's the deal with robot childcare? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: because we've got robots doing all kinds of things. I
Speaker 1: mean we kind of technically have They can weld car doors, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which relates to childcare in many ways. They can they
Speaker 1: can wage war on humans. I guess it's usually have
Speaker 1: human controllers involved there. I mean, we already have baby monitors.
Speaker 1: We technically have limited robots watching your children. Maybe kind
Speaker 1: of you might call that a robot. Okay, that might
Speaker 1: sort of fit into a framework that we can put
Speaker 1: up and discuss in a bit here. Uh but okay,
Speaker 1: let's give a little disclaimer before we get into this discussion,
Speaker 1: which is that from my perspective and I'm someone, I'm
Speaker 1: not a parent myself, and neither of us our parents,
Speaker 1: So we should get that out on the table. We
Speaker 1: don't necessarily speak from experience. Um, but I at least
Speaker 1: observe that discussions about parenting are fraught with subtle judgments
Speaker 1: and sometimes not so subtle, so times really really out
Speaker 1: there in your face judgments. Yeah. So we just want
Speaker 1: to stay here at the beginning that we intend none
Speaker 1: of that whatsoever. We just want to have a discussion
Speaker 1: about technology, the possibilities, and not make any judgments about
Speaker 1: the way people parent or the choices they make, uh,
Speaker 1: raising their kids right, because everyone does it differently. It's
Speaker 1: certainly not an easy task for anybody. I think that
Speaker 1: everyone is doing the best that they can and we
Speaker 1: would not know. Yeah, and as a robot would not judge,
Speaker 1: we will not judge. We want to emulate that sort
Speaker 1: of like cold steely in difference and neutrality that are
Speaker 1: that our robot overlords have modeled for us. So well, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that our first point actually goes with that
Speaker 1: pretty well. Yeah, I think it's a little bit cold,
Speaker 1: is it. Yeah. So, as much as we love our children,
Speaker 1: I do think it's worth saying that for lots of people,
Speaker 1: many aspects of childcare are not necessarily the most highly
Speaker 1: prized activities. And that's not necessarily something I think people
Speaker 1: should be ashamed to admit, Like, you can totally love
Speaker 1: your kid and still not be thrilled about changing his
Speaker 1: or her diapers, right, or having to make them eat
Speaker 1: food when they don't want to eat food, or take
Speaker 1: them screaming through various public spaces, right. And in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases, I'd say that the idea that I
Speaker 1: really wish I could have some machine to help me
Speaker 1: do this, it's not even necessarily a question of preference.
Speaker 1: It might be something about necessity, like you have limited
Speaker 1: time resources, right. Sure. A thing that's pretty frequently talked
Speaker 1: about is the expense of raising kids um in terms
Speaker 1: of actual monetary dollar values, and as of twelve in
Speaker 1: the US, from birth to the age seventeen, it's an
Speaker 1: average of two forty one thousand and eighty dollars um
Speaker 1: to raise a child nothing and that's that's a kid
Speaker 1: born in But the time expense involved raising a child
Speaker 1: is a lot more difficult to calculate. Um And that's
Speaker 1: putting it a little bit coldly, but it's definitely a
Speaker 1: thing to think about. I mean, it's it's certainly a
Speaker 1: factor in whether or not people decide to have children
Speaker 1: at all. Right, Well, there are a whole lot of
Speaker 1: really important decisions that come into play once you've had
Speaker 1: a child. Um, Like the question about whether one parent
Speaker 1: will stay home with the child to help raise the child,
Speaker 1: or whether both parents are going to work. That's a
Speaker 1: thing that's a lot of people worry about. Now, that's
Speaker 1: one of those areas where you see people making judgments
Speaker 1: at each other and oh, certainly, um, I find that
Speaker 1: kind of strange, but I do certainly recognize that it's
Speaker 1: a serious question. Oh yeah, you know, and it's not
Speaker 1: always feasible for to have any parents stay home in
Speaker 1: these are modern economic times. Um As in the US,
Speaker 1: of the families that included a married a married couple
Speaker 1: and children under the age of eighteen had both parents working,
Speaker 1: and of all mothers UM seventy point five percent we're
Speaker 1: looking for work or we're we're working or looking for work,
Speaker 1: And in some other countries it's it's different, right well,
Speaker 1: you know, here here in the US UM, I think
Speaker 1: it's partially due to the lack of of national paid
Speaker 1: family leave UM. American women are guaranteed twelve weeks of
Speaker 1: unpaid leave, but the US is one of the very
Speaker 1: few nations in the world that offers no paid maternal
Speaker 1: leave guaranteed to its citizens. Canada, for example, offers fifty weeks,
Speaker 1: Pakistan offers twelve weeks, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland are
Speaker 1: right there with US at zero UM and and some
Speaker 1: countries offer paternal leave to Iceland and Norway lead that
Speaker 1: worldwide with about ten to twelve weeks. Yeah, So if
Speaker 1: you don't have parental leave and you're in a situation
Speaker 1: where you need to return to work in order to
Speaker 1: have enough money to support your family, UM, you're probably
Speaker 1: going to have to turn to something like daycare. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you don't have to have a close family member
Speaker 1: who can provide that kind of support, then absolutely, and
Speaker 1: it's not always easy to procure that kind of daycare
Speaker 1: in Japan, for example, some parents have to wait like
Speaker 1: two years on a list before getting a spot. It's
Speaker 1: such a problem that as of fall, the Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Shinzo Abbe promised to create four hundred thousand more daycare spots.
Speaker 1: By seen it's one of those politician promises that and
Speaker 1: it's such a huge number. I'm like, oh, no, this
Speaker 1: is a this is a problem, y'all. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I laughed. That's that's not that funny, but it
Speaker 1: just seems so. It seems literally right right the fact
Speaker 1: that I mean, you know, it's I think it's that
Speaker 1: part of the equation is a lot easier. Here in
Speaker 1: the United States, we have pretty plentiful child care services,
Speaker 1: but but they're expensive. I think that I think that
Speaker 1: I saw it listed. I don't have the fact in
Speaker 1: front of me, but as as one of the top
Speaker 1: household expenditures outside of the physical house that you are
Speaker 1: living in, yeah, I can believe it. So with all
Speaker 1: these logistical and economic pressures on parents today, I can
Speaker 1: really see why somebody would start to think, Man, if
Speaker 1: only I had a machine that could provide really good
Speaker 1: care for my child when I really need to be
Speaker 1: doing something else, you know, that becomes sort of understandable
Speaker 1: why somebody might earn for that. Um So, okay, So
Speaker 1: I want to kind of put together a framework for
Speaker 1: thinking about the different kinds of things that a childcare
Speaker 1: robot might do. Um. So, the first one, and what
Speaker 1: seemed like the easiest thing to me, would be basically entertainment.
Speaker 1: This is the thing I think a lot of parents
Speaker 1: used to sort of buy themselves sometime, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I really need to wash the dishes, so I can
Speaker 1: put the child in front of the computer or in
Speaker 1: front of the TV, or give the child some kind
Speaker 1: of activity to do, right, so that, for the love
Speaker 1: of everything Holy, I can go take a shower, right.
Speaker 1: Um Yeah, So that one doesn't seem like that much
Speaker 1: of a stretch, actually, And you can imagine some very
Speaker 1: rudimentary robots that maybe wouldn't even necessarily meet the definition
Speaker 1: of a robot. But there's some kind of machine that's
Speaker 1: at least engaging enough for the child that it really
Speaker 1: holds the child's attention, and there's um not a lot
Speaker 1: of risk of the child constantly becoming distracted and wandering
Speaker 1: over towards the knife block. Now you might ask in
Speaker 1: what sense, if you're just talking about entertainment, would a
Speaker 1: robot be better than just like say, a computer game
Speaker 1: or a TV show. Yeah, And I guess one advantage
Speaker 1: is you could say that an interactive robot playmate, if
Speaker 1: it was sufficiently realistic in mimicking human behavior, that might
Speaker 1: be and I'm not necessarily sure it would be, but
Speaker 1: it might be more pro social and more engaging to
Speaker 1: the child, more kind of modeling behavior. Sure, And because
Speaker 1: you know what, one of the one of the rejections
Speaker 1: of television and computer games and stuff like that, for
Speaker 1: for especially very young children, is that they're not learned
Speaker 1: in any kind of socialization skills and that they're kind
Speaker 1: of you know, rotting their brain I think is the
Speaker 1: highly scientific term that gets tossed around a lot. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's passive, and and that they don't learn any skills
Speaker 1: on how to interact. Um. Okay, So the first one
Speaker 1: would be that sort of entertainment thing, But the second,
Speaker 1: I guess would be the sort of child maintenance tasks
Speaker 1: like the you are in some sense when you're a parent,
Speaker 1: you're sort of a child custodian, So you have to
Speaker 1: change diapers, feed the child, wash the child. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's lots of other things I don't even know about. Um.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the physical mechanical activities of taking
Speaker 1: care of the child to help keep him or her healthy, clean, comfortable, happy, um.
Speaker 1: And this seems like more of a stretch than the entertainment,
Speaker 1: but at the same time not necessarily outside the realm
Speaker 1: of possibility, right, because we do have robotics that are
Speaker 1: capable of are acting very delicately with things, although we
Speaker 1: are just starting to develop those. Really, I think that
Speaker 1: safety concerns would be at the top of the maybe
Speaker 1: not so much list for this category exactly. So you
Speaker 1: can put a lot of trust in a robotic arm
Speaker 1: that is, you know, welding a car door thousands of
Speaker 1: times a day. I mean, obviously, car companies that use
Speaker 1: these invest in them and trust them enough to risk
Speaker 1: messing up all this equipment if they don't work right.
Speaker 1: But still you feel like more is at risk if
Speaker 1: your your baby is there. And if the diaper changing robot,
Speaker 1: you know, accidentally, even just nudges your baby too hard,
Speaker 1: that's something you really really don't want, of course. And
Speaker 1: also babies, I imagine squiggle around a whole lot more
Speaker 1: than that car door that's that's being welded. There's probably
Speaker 1: a lot more variables to worry about in terms of
Speaker 1: children than there are in terms of cars. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I actually imagine that it's a harder robot programming problem
Speaker 1: to do that look at touch that is just precisely
Speaker 1: well something. Yeah. Well, well there's there's all that conversation
Speaker 1: about how difficult it is to get sensory feedback in
Speaker 1: a robot. Correct, so that so that you can pick up,
Speaker 1: for example, a styrofoam cup without crushing it. It's something
Speaker 1: that we as humans take for granted because we've got
Speaker 1: a really complex feedback system in our brains and sensory
Speaker 1: apparati haptic feedback. Yeah. Um, okay, so those are sort
Speaker 1: of items one to entertainment, and then child maintenance three
Speaker 1: is where we start getting into the Wow, this would
Speaker 1: be amazing, but I don't know. And this is keeping
Speaker 1: children safe, right, So that's the that's the keeping them
Speaker 1: like physically preventing them from running over to that knife block, Yeah,
Speaker 1: running into the street, crawling onto the stove. I mean,
Speaker 1: you never realize how many deadly things are in your
Speaker 1: house until there's a baby there. Uh. Actually, you know,
Speaker 1: my wife and I had a friend who brought his
Speaker 1: child over to our house, and suddenly our house, which
Speaker 1: normally seems so comfortable, seems so dangerous to me. I
Speaker 1: was like everything that has a corner on it, and
Speaker 1: you're just like, oh crap. Yeah. Um. And so taking
Speaker 1: care of a child and keeping that child safe obviously
Speaker 1: is something that's a very sensitive task and requires attention.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of what this parenting investment probably is
Speaker 1: a lot of times you're not even necessarily doing anything directly,
Speaker 1: you're just keeping a really close eye on things to
Speaker 1: make sure nothing dangerous happens, all right, allowing the child
Speaker 1: to to explore and play and interacting with it, but
Speaker 1: but also yeah, making sure it doesn't kill itself. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: this is where the robotics starts getting really difficult for me. Um,
Speaker 1: because unless you're in a very controlled environment, say like
Speaker 1: a safe room of some kind, you would need incredibly
Speaker 1: advanced AI on a robot that was designed to keep
Speaker 1: children safe. It would have to have something way beyond
Speaker 1: any kind of AI that that robots are capable of today,
Speaker 1: and very advanced motorization as well. It's really difficult at
Speaker 1: this juncture and robot express to create something that moves
Speaker 1: around with that kind of ease. Yeah, so just imagine
Speaker 1: the scenario is the child is running out into the
Speaker 1: street in a car is coming. So now you have
Speaker 1: to combine not only a robot with enough good sensory
Speaker 1: input to see that the danger is arriving, but good
Speaker 1: enough AI to realize that this is a danger. Um
Speaker 1: the delicate touch we were talking about in the you know,
Speaker 1: the diaper changing robot, because it would have to be
Speaker 1: able to scoop the child out of harm's way in
Speaker 1: a way that wouldn't hurt the child, right, because if
Speaker 1: you just hit the child with a speeding robot instead
Speaker 1: of a speeding car, you're not helping the situation. Right.
Speaker 1: Once you get to this stage, you're really starting to
Speaker 1: get into the i think, the kind of sci fi
Speaker 1: area of robotics where this is way way out there
Speaker 1: if it's ever possible. So, so, what's the most what's
Speaker 1: the most ridiculous thing that you've thought of? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: those are levels one through three. I would say that
Speaker 1: probably the hardest one is the idea of nurture, and
Speaker 1: that's sort of an abstract concept, but basically I'd say
Speaker 1: it's a synthesis of education, encouragement, and emotional bonding. It's
Speaker 1: that other thing parents do for their kids that's not
Speaker 1: sort of a mechanical task or involved in physical safety,
Speaker 1: but it's what parents do when they're having a relationship
Speaker 1: with their child. And and that's also maybe one of
Speaker 1: the things that that people pass the most judgment on
Speaker 1: of of whether or not a human being is ever
Speaker 1: doing a good enough job teaching their child and loving
Speaker 1: their child and paying attention to their child. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's this incredibly deep, human nuanced kind of
Speaker 1: task that I don't know if we even really understand
Speaker 1: it well enough to codify what humans should be doing. Oh,
Speaker 1: we don't much less to have a robot do it
Speaker 1: for us. There's a lot of you know, psycho behavioral
Speaker 1: kind of studies out there about this sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and we're we're learning more about how brains develop, but
Speaker 1: it's it's all it's all very research based right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there's the other question of once you get
Speaker 1: to that level, you're probably talking about tasks where I'd
Speaker 1: imagine most parents wouldn't want a robot to replace them
Speaker 1: in this sort of nurturing category, even if it would
Speaker 1: free them up some time, Like that's the kind of
Speaker 1: sort of like the core of being a parent. That's
Speaker 1: why they became a parent. Yeah. Um, okay, so we've
Speaker 1: talked about this framework now, but what's actually out there, Like,
Speaker 1: are there any robots that are anywhere close to being
Speaker 1: a childcare robot? Well, there's already some robots for older
Speaker 1: adult companionship. Um and I and I say companionship because
Speaker 1: it's it's not caregiving kind of thing really. Um. You
Speaker 1: know you've got that that peroh the oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: seal Pepper robot. It is so cute, umunster fuzzy little
Speaker 1: electronic monster. Absolutely. Um. And there's others in testing that
Speaker 1: are that are more humanoid shaped. There's one called the
Speaker 1: Moby serve um that's being tested in Europe right now.
Speaker 1: But um, but you know, the tasks involved in childcare
Speaker 1: and and companionship for the elderly are so incredibly different,
Speaker 1: you know, but both involve monitoring and sympathetic interactions. But
Speaker 1: but companion robots are more like safety and remind your
Speaker 1: kind of based things. But what they're talking about, there's
Speaker 1: something that's going to go like oh, Hey, you left
Speaker 1: the stove on, Please turn that off? Or oh, hey
Speaker 1: did you take your medications today? Or hey, you seem
Speaker 1: like you're making that face that I have learned as sad.
Speaker 1: Would you like to call somebody and talk to them
Speaker 1: about how sad you are? You know that that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and that's not the kind of an interaction
Speaker 1: that you can have with a baby. Some experts think
Speaker 1: that it might be twenty years before we see reliable
Speaker 1: senior care robots on the market and the kind of
Speaker 1: care that that you were talking about in in your
Speaker 1: list of possible robot tasks there, what's required for for
Speaker 1: all of those is going to vary widely based on
Speaker 1: any given child's age, moods, and in particular needs. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: what about the soft touch. That's something I'm pretty curious about. Uh,
Speaker 1: the kind of very delicate handling that any robot dealing
Speaker 1: with a child whose bones are still forming and all that,
Speaker 1: or even if the fully formed bones, you still probably
Speaker 1: need to be delicate. I guess right, Um, material science
Speaker 1: is going to start helping out with this, and we're
Speaker 1: we are just brushing the surface of that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Researchers are working on soft robots and flexible electronics, you know,
Speaker 1: things that move more like muscle and skin and don't
Speaker 1: have hard edges for baby to fall on. You know,
Speaker 1: it's thinking about how terrified I would be if something
Speaker 1: like R two D two showed up for my child
Speaker 1: to play with. That thing is just I mean, it's
Speaker 1: mostly smooth, but how many surfaces could it smack its
Speaker 1: head into? That's awful. Um, what I'm saying is that
Speaker 1: R two D two would be a terrible babysitter. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, or too, I love you, Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's robotic engineering has so traditionally focused on rigid
Speaker 1: materials that there aren't even really soft material simulation tools
Speaker 1: available to robotic developers right now. And um, and and
Speaker 1: even power sources would have to be totally rethought for
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, because a traditional rotary motor would
Speaker 1: be really restrictive to something that's trying to be kind
Speaker 1: of amorphous and and movable and soft. Oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: power is obviously one of the big issues, especially if
Speaker 1: you want a robot that's gonna follow your child around
Speaker 1: in the park. And again, like we said, make sure
Speaker 1: it doesn't go out in the street all right, All
Speaker 1: of that physical capacity stuff like like we were saying earlier,
Speaker 1: sensing and moving around sound like they're easy to do,
Speaker 1: but for robots they're very, very complicated, as we have
Speaker 1: talked about before on the show. Yeah. Uh, then kind
Speaker 1: of kind of following down your list, you've got emotion
Speaker 1: recognition and simulation of emotion to worry about, um, because
Speaker 1: you know, in order that would play in in sort
Speaker 1: of one and four right, like in the like social
Speaker 1: interaction and in the nurturing. Sure, and all of that
Speaker 1: is being studied and developed, but it's it's so complex.
Speaker 1: You know, input from humans is really nuanced and varied. Um,
Speaker 1: all of that stuff with with semantics and pattern recognition
Speaker 1: is so basic right now, and we have so much
Speaker 1: of it to learn about ourselves before we can teach
Speaker 1: a robot how to do it. Yeah. Well, I read
Speaker 1: a couple of studies actually saying that um, a sufficiently
Speaker 1: you know, convincing humanoid robot can get a child to
Speaker 1: want to interact with it and sort of ascribe some
Speaker 1: human emotions to it and at least be curious about it. Right,
Speaker 1: it might it might be harder to work back the
Speaker 1: other way to get the robot to recognize like the
Speaker 1: emotions of the child and and sort of understand its
Speaker 1: needs to be totally honest. Whenever, whenever I read stuff
Speaker 1: about this, I'm like, there are many days when I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what's going on with other people based on
Speaker 1: their facial expressions. So therefore, I'm not sure how I
Speaker 1: could expect a robot to do the same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so how far away is just like Rosie the Jetsons,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I don't think that we're ever
Speaker 1: going to have a Rosie. Honestly, I think that that's
Speaker 1: one of those things like like it would be nice,
Speaker 1: like the Singularity. That sounds terrific, But you know, I
Speaker 1: think part of what we need in order to have
Speaker 1: robot child care is is a basic change in the
Speaker 1: way that we think about human robot interaction. You know,
Speaker 1: if if we have this concept that we're going to
Speaker 1: have this this robot, this kind of better than human,
Speaker 1: perfect thing that is more capable than we are, doing
Speaker 1: tasks for us that we just don't want to do.
Speaker 1: That's that science fiction, folks, At least it certainly is
Speaker 1: for the foreseeable future. And I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of our concepts about all that is really rooted in
Speaker 1: science fiction, which is a terrific model for for thinking
Speaker 1: about the future. Obviously, I mean, I mean we talk
Speaker 1: about it so much on the show. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean when you whenever you talk about interacting with robots,
Speaker 1: you have to think about Asimov. Oh yeah, and and
Speaker 1: his and his rules. Those those three rules of robotics. Right,
Speaker 1: robots can't harm humans, right, number one. Number two is
Speaker 1: they have to obey humans, right. And then three is
Speaker 1: they can't self destruct, right, but they're prioritized like that exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then two and three are each based on right
Speaker 1: the previous rules. Um. But but the thing is is
Speaker 1: that these these rules were written to be interestingly flawed.
Speaker 1: I mean that the story that he wrote happens because
Speaker 1: of the flaws, and so you can't really base reality
Speaker 1: on inherently flawed rules. A couple of engineers, David Woods
Speaker 1: and Robin Murphy, have done some interesting writing about that,
Speaker 1: and and they say that better rules would focus on
Speaker 1: a realistic view of human responsibility for for safety and
Speaker 1: ethics in robot deployment. It's true, once you get into
Speaker 1: the idea of a more complex robot interacting with the child,
Speaker 1: say anything beyond maybe one or two of the list,
Speaker 1: Like once you're getting into full on interaction, robust interaction
Speaker 1: that you know is uh, sort of free ranging and
Speaker 1: that the child's safety is dependent upon. Right. Once you
Speaker 1: get into that realm, you're really talking about machine ethics,
Speaker 1: which is a whole other topic, um, and and one
Speaker 1: that we could do tons of shows about and probably
Speaker 1: will in the future. I'm sure that this will come
Speaker 1: up again, yes, but I want to bring it back
Speaker 1: to examples because I'm sure you know, uh, like Brian
Speaker 1: was asking about this, I mean everybody's wondering, like, is
Speaker 1: anybody trying to sell a childcare robot today? I mean,
Speaker 1: is there anything like that? The answer is there some
Speaker 1: things are sort of like that that are prototypes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're there are related products, But I mean basically the
Speaker 1: answer is not at all. Um, let's talk about a
Speaker 1: few of the things that are sort of kind of yeah. Sure.
Speaker 1: Back in two thou eight, there was buzz about this
Speaker 1: Japanese company, Japanese robotics company Team Masks Shopping Helper bought
Speaker 1: and this this is like a like a shopping daycare
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and this was a child size like
Speaker 1: like one point four meter or four ft seven robot
Speaker 1: that would help mind children in a couple of Japanese
Speaker 1: department stores. Like it had a little projector in one
Speaker 1: eye and a camera and the other and it could
Speaker 1: identify children based on little badges that you could put
Speaker 1: on them. But that was for extremely short periods of time,
Speaker 1: hypothetically under human supervision. It was more of that category
Speaker 1: one entertainment sort of robot than an actual child care helper. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Along that line is something that's been experimented with by
Speaker 1: a Japanese company, an e C. Yeah, and so they've
Speaker 1: made a sort of a communication companion robot called PAPERO. Um.
Speaker 1: Now I think it's not exactly paper oh we're talking about,
Speaker 1: but uh, I found one thing that was any C
Speaker 1: had a US patent filed in two thousand five published
Speaker 1: for quote Childcare Robot and method of Controlling the robot Um.
Speaker 1: And so ANYC has been experimenting with some prototypes of
Speaker 1: childcare robots. But these are not robust childcare robots like
Speaker 1: run into the street. Uh, it's more like a robot
Speaker 1: that's sort of a fun interaction kind of thing, right,
Speaker 1: something in between Um, in between that that one and
Speaker 1: that four which is such a weird space to play in,
Speaker 1: you know. I I think that that's part of the
Speaker 1: problem is is that when people are designing stuff like this,
Speaker 1: they're really hoping for for what they're actually capable of
Speaker 1: is not quite one. Yeah, it's it's like, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a little better, better than a computer game, but it's
Speaker 1: not nurture. It's it's absolutely not nurture. Yeah. But but
Speaker 1: so so this thing, this thing is adorable. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a well so in the first before I was
Speaker 1: even reading about paper oh, I saw this patent on
Speaker 1: this the childcare Robot, which looks a lot like paperrow. Um.
Speaker 1: It seems to be based on the same kind of design,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, I love you Nanny Mix Snowman.
Speaker 1: It looks like a funny little rolling snowman thing. And
Speaker 1: then they also recently have come out with a new
Speaker 1: version that I think it's a stationary version, the Papero
Speaker 1: petite um. And but that's being build more not as
Speaker 1: a childcare robot, but as an elder companion right right. Um.
Speaker 1: It's got you know, sensors to to track stuff, microphones, cameras, um,
Speaker 1: temperature sensors to make sure that there's no fire going on,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. It can apparently find people even in
Speaker 1: complete darkness, which I think is a really terrifically creepy
Speaker 1: but I mean, but important sensory apparatus. But as we
Speaker 1: were saying earlier, all of these features are pretty easy
Speaker 1: to implement or to see implemented, to imagine being implemented
Speaker 1: as an elder care robot. But it gets a lot
Speaker 1: more ethically tricksy when you try to apply that to children. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: um So. One thing I do think that's interesting about this, though,
Speaker 1: is the idea of a communication robot, so it's sort
Speaker 1: of like keeping track of what's going on visually. Um.
Speaker 1: This does introduce to me an idea that I think
Speaker 1: might be much more feasible in the short term than
Speaker 1: an autonomous childcare robot, which is a childcare telepresence robot.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that could be That could be cool. So
Speaker 1: telepresence robots, you know, they're they're already showing up in
Speaker 1: like weird Silicon Valley offices where you basically you stick
Speaker 1: an iPad on top of a it looks like a
Speaker 1: scooter and it just rolls around the office with somebody's
Speaker 1: face who didn't want to fly in, and you know
Speaker 1: that they ram into your door to let you know
Speaker 1: that they want to come in and have a meeting
Speaker 1: with you. And then they can come up to the
Speaker 1: water cooler and hang out and talk their shirt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not making this up. This is a real phenomenon.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's all that wide spread, but
Speaker 1: some people are really doing this. But I can see
Speaker 1: it having some value in childcare, like if you want
Speaker 1: to have at least a visual and auditory presence with
Speaker 1: your child when you're not there, um, a sort of
Speaker 1: moving telepresence robot that shows your face on the screen,
Speaker 1: translates your voice, and can move around with the child
Speaker 1: might be sort of an upgrade over just like Skype
Speaker 1: on a static computer screen. Sure, and I could see
Speaker 1: it being valuable as a kind of advanced baby monitor,
Speaker 1: like the kind of thing where if you want to
Speaker 1: go into your office in another room of the house
Speaker 1: and get some work done and have your robot hanging
Speaker 1: out with your baby, um, but you know, but still
Speaker 1: be able to kind of check over on a on
Speaker 1: a second screen or something like that and see what
Speaker 1: the baby's up to and talk to it if you
Speaker 1: want to Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can totally see that. Actually,
Speaker 1: I can also see if we want to get closer
Speaker 1: to that sci fi vision, let's imagine that the sort
Speaker 1: of movement and uh and handling of the robots are
Speaker 1: all the physical capabilities of the robot really outpaced the
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence aspect. You could maybe get a telepresent safety robot.
Speaker 1: Like we were saying, it's going to be really hard
Speaker 1: to make a robot that autonomously keeps children out of danger. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe some types of danger, but you know, it's not
Speaker 1: going to be fool proof. I can imagine a telepresence
Speaker 1: robot where okay, well you've really gotten movement kind of down, um,
Speaker 1: but it just doesn't know what to do in every case.
Speaker 1: Maybe you are looking through a screen and you're controlling
Speaker 1: this from a distance. Okay, well, but but at that point,
Speaker 1: are you're really saving time if you have to spend
Speaker 1: all your time at the office. Uh yeah, maybe you
Speaker 1: can get Grandma who lives a few states away to
Speaker 1: control the robots. I don't know. It's a good point.
Speaker 1: And telepresence robots are being thought about for for medical
Speaker 1: purposes a lot, which I think cross over into both
Speaker 1: elder care and childcare. Uh in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: as as developments in the medical field spur more better
Speaker 1: robots for for those kind of purposes, then maybe we'll
Speaker 1: see some of that tracking over into these fields. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: and okay, so now that we've talked about this, I
Speaker 1: do kind of want to back up and get a
Speaker 1: little bit of perspective on this. Um. There was one
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to reference because I thought this was
Speaker 1: a good source. It was from a few years back.
Speaker 1: It was in two thousand eight. There was an tutorial
Speaker 1: and science by the roboticist Noel Sharky called the Ethical
Speaker 1: Frontiers of Robotics, And in this piece, Sharky sort of
Speaker 1: warns about, hey, let's not necessarily rush into this whole
Speaker 1: thing with robots taking these social roles like say, entering
Speaker 1: the battlefield or doing uh, you know, childcare. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: he was a little bit harsh about it. Um, there
Speaker 1: have been some studies in the in this senior care
Speaker 1: sector about reactions to these companion robots, and they've generally
Speaker 1: found those interactions to be favorable. But my my favorite
Speaker 1: quote in this piece by Sharky was, um, they meaning
Speaker 1: robot companions for the elderly are being touted as a
Speaker 1: solution to the contact problem. But these are still toys
Speaker 1: that do not alleviate elder isolation, even if they may
Speaker 1: relieve some of the guilt felt by relatives or society
Speaker 1: in general about this problem. The success of these robots
Speaker 1: may stem from people being systematically deluded about the real
Speaker 1: nature of their relationship to these devices. That's interesting but harsh.
Speaker 1: Of course. Then again, you could also say that we
Speaker 1: enjoy our relationships with our pets because we're systematically deluded
Speaker 1: about what our pets think of us. I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of the point. If we were small enough, our
Speaker 1: pets would eat us. Of course they would. I mean,
Speaker 1: we look delicious. But and and just because they're grinning
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they're smiling. It means that they're panting.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, but at any rate, I mean, we
Speaker 1: still get a positive interaction out of that, whether or
Speaker 1: not it's based on delusion. Yeah. He He also warned
Speaker 1: against um the possible effects of having a child get
Speaker 1: too much of its parenting from a robot. One analogy
Speaker 1: he drew was too studies of the development of young
Speaker 1: monkeys that actually he referred to what I think he
Speaker 1: was referring to as a controversial study about what happens
Speaker 1: when you take away real monkey mothers from the monkey
Speaker 1: babies and and put in a wooden and wire monkey
Speaker 1: that that does have that does contain milk, I think,
Speaker 1: But I think the some of them had milk and
Speaker 1: some didn't, and some were covered in cloth and some weren't. Um,
Speaker 1: this is a controversial experiment, and it's now considered to
Speaker 1: have been below ethical standards for how you should treat
Speaker 1: animals in experiments. But um, it did show that monkeys
Speaker 1: don't develop right if if they don't have the right
Speaker 1: actual parenting presences. Yeah, the wooden monkey babies were pretty
Speaker 1: we're we're antisocial and just not not responsive in the
Speaker 1: correct ways. Well, the way he puts it is, studies
Speaker 1: of early development in monkeys have shown the severe social
Speaker 1: dysfunction occurs in infant animals allowed to develop attachments only
Speaker 1: to inanimate surrogates. Now I would, on one hand, I
Speaker 1: can see that. On the other hand, and here we're
Speaker 1: talking about kind of crude inanimate approximations of a monkey
Speaker 1: mother shape un puppet, it might be a different thing
Speaker 1: entirely if you're talking about a fairly convincing robot. Right,
Speaker 1: anything that responds to you is obviously going to be
Speaker 1: more interactive and more socializing than something that apps that
Speaker 1: has zero response. It's a whole I love you, cold
Speaker 1: and feeling robot arm kind of kind of thing. Invader
Speaker 1: some fans, anyone, Okay, Well, in the end, I think
Speaker 1: we really just don't know. And obviously it's not going
Speaker 1: to be ethical to just experiment on children. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: no one is proposing, well, no one that I've read
Speaker 1: about is proposing just taking babies and giving them to
Speaker 1: robots and seeing what happens. Now, well, I mean I'm
Speaker 1: all for research to see in a very controlled and
Speaker 1: ethical setting. Obviously, you know what what children can get
Speaker 1: out of certain interactions with robots. I guess I mean
Speaker 1: the human equivalent, Like we shouldn't be like stealing babies
Speaker 1: away from your parents and and and giving them to
Speaker 1: crazy robots. Yeah, the goblin king styled robots. None, None
Speaker 1: of them. I don't know if if a robot saying
Speaker 1: saying David Bowie to my baby, I would be pretty
Speaker 1: down for that. That would be a great robot babysitter.
Speaker 1: That's maybe this is why I don't have babies. Ka. Well, Brian,
Speaker 1: we have now talked about robot childcare and your basic
Speaker 1: answer is interesting question, but um, we're just gonna have
Speaker 1: to wait and see about that one. Yes, and thank
Speaker 1: you so much for asking that question. If you have
Speaker 1: any questions that you would like to ask us, you
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