Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
Speaker 1: we just finished talking about old people in robots a
Speaker 1: little bit in our last Living with Robots podcast, because
Speaker 1: as we discussed there, we're looking at a future full
Speaker 1: of old people. I mean we will probably we're going
Speaker 1: to be some of those old people properly and uh,
Speaker 1: and somebody's gonna have to look after them, after them,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna be fewer young people to take care
Speaker 1: of all these old people. Young people will be busy
Speaker 1: doing their stuff and you know, going into space and
Speaker 1: all that, and they're gonna leave this this planet. Are
Speaker 1: you saying they're the young people are going in the
Speaker 1: generation ship and they're leaving off the old people behind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll have an oldie planet. I mean it'll be very peaceful,
Speaker 1: lots of parks, lots of feeding scorel maybe maybe because
Speaker 1: as we discussed in the last podcast, it could be
Speaker 1: a bunch of rotting, uh, senior citizens with their exo
Speaker 1: skeletons just skating right past you. You don't even you
Speaker 1: don't know well, In this podcast, we're gonna explore this
Speaker 1: topic a little a little closer, um, and a little
Speaker 1: deeper and really get down into the nitty gritty of
Speaker 1: our all Right, So we we want robots to help
Speaker 1: take care of the elderly, or we want them to
Speaker 1: take care of the elderly entirely. UM, let's start hashing
Speaker 1: out some designs because, needless to say, you're common assembly
Speaker 1: line robot is incapable of caring for Grandma. I mean
Speaker 1: it there's a you go you you see like an
Speaker 1: assembly line robot. It's gonna have barriers up around it
Speaker 1: because it cannot work safely next to humans. And what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is is is a much I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very far removed from that concept because it has
Speaker 1: to be able to work around people without killing them.
Speaker 1: Not only that, it has to be able to do
Speaker 1: things like help a fragile individual with daily tasks such
Speaker 1: as you know, get getting in and out of the bathtub,
Speaker 1: using the restroom, helping them feed them, helping them to
Speaker 1: know what kind of medication to take in any given time,
Speaker 1: and anticipate their needs. That's huge, and do all this
Speaker 1: while moving around in a human environment and potentially feeding
Speaker 1: off of of human you know, these human cues and
Speaker 1: human emotional cues. I mean, how hard is it to
Speaker 1: understand what's going on in the mind of of of
Speaker 1: the average person around you. Um, it's fairly difficult. But
Speaker 1: but could we make a robot that could possibly at
Speaker 1: least get some of those the subtle clues? Well if
Speaker 1: they're trying, right, right, And that's that's what we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about today. Can we build a better bot? And
Speaker 1: you know, what are some of the challenges? Um? And
Speaker 1: and right now, I mean again, let's just talk about
Speaker 1: the aging population again real quick. Particularly in Japan. It's
Speaker 1: called the gray Yen. Um. It is called that because
Speaker 1: it's providing a growing market in Japan for these services.
Speaker 1: The Gray Yan almost of the population is over the
Speaker 1: age of sixty five. And they can also this is
Speaker 1: the other note to this, they can also afford a
Speaker 1: bit more. The jet black Yen buys a lot of
Speaker 1: toys though, and electronic gadgets, yes, yes. And the Sterling
Speaker 1: it just means you get to hang out with Richard
Speaker 1: Branson on one of his shuttle flights. It's called the
Speaker 1: Gray Yen Shuttle flight Sterling. Alright, I like this. I
Speaker 1: like this. The economy of the nation as divided up
Speaker 1: into hair colors. Oh, I was thinking it was. I
Speaker 1: was thinking it was more like the American Express card,
Speaker 1: like the platinum and the red yen is is really adventurous?
Speaker 1: Not going right? That dyed red hair. Yes, yeah, they're
Speaker 1: all loose watch out with excess skeletons and the red yen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there's I guess the blonde yin because you
Speaker 1: have the what there's a particular fad in Japan where
Speaker 1: the women dress up like like dolls. Why is this
Speaker 1: saluting me? Um? It's not. Is it part of kawaii?
Speaker 1: It factors into kauai. But there's a there's this, yes,
Speaker 1: and then there's a Lolita noir where they dressed up
Speaker 1: like dark Lolita's. And there's a whole other by the way,
Speaker 1: there's a whole they're like underground economy with the Lolita girls.
Speaker 1: By the way, an older men, but we won't talk
Speaker 1: about that today. Uh, getting back on track. Um, so yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about you know this, this aging population of
Speaker 1: old men looking for Lolita's. Um and just again to
Speaker 1: put this in more context, by four out of ten,
Speaker 1: Japanese will be classified as elderly. Okay, So it makes
Speaker 1: sense that they're the ones that are really going after
Speaker 1: this this problem of aging really um. And in fact
Speaker 1: there's just so you know how they've been preparing. There's
Speaker 1: actually a Tokyo based company called prop that has created
Speaker 1: air bags for the elderly. Yes, you send me the
Speaker 1: link to this, and it's it's pretty fascinating because it's
Speaker 1: kind of exactly what it sounds like. It's like this
Speaker 1: kind of robotic harness that you wear, and it had
Speaker 1: as these air bags that will sort of shoot up
Speaker 1: around the head and around the hips because these are
Speaker 1: of course the most vulnerable areas of the old body. Um,
Speaker 1: you don't want to hit your head, damns the brain,
Speaker 1: you don't want to hit the hips. Very difficult to
Speaker 1: deal with, you. So these are cushions that pop up.
Speaker 1: They weigh two and a half pounds each enter tied
Speaker 1: around the waist and then they're activated by electric sensors
Speaker 1: that can feel a sudden change in movement as soon
Speaker 1: as the alarm goes off. Fifteen liters of compressed air
Speaker 1: inject into these inflatable pads, puff them up and then
Speaker 1: ideally when you fall backwards, and you can only fall
Speaker 1: backwards this right, by the way, never pitch forward. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of like in um to bring
Speaker 1: up pro wrestling again. Like a lot of those guys
Speaker 1: like they trained to take bumps and they try they
Speaker 1: generally you want to bump right on your back. And
Speaker 1: I've I've heard some of these guys talk about like
Speaker 1: they trained so this locker room talk. No, well, I
Speaker 1: don't go to locker rooms, but room the bump, bump
Speaker 1: on your back? What does that mean? To take a
Speaker 1: bump is to fall Like any time in a wrestling mat,
Speaker 1: for see a guy like take a punch or a
Speaker 1: slam and he hits the canvas, He's taking a bump, okay,
Speaker 1: And so they trained for this just to to take
Speaker 1: the bump in an optimal fashion so that it doesn't
Speaker 1: really do much damage. I mean, it will do a
Speaker 1: lot of damage over time perhaps, but generally you want
Speaker 1: to fall flat on your back and take this flat
Speaker 1: bump on your back. And I've heard some of these
Speaker 1: guys talk about to where they're they're trained to such
Speaker 1: a point that if they were to slip on milk
Speaker 1: in the grocery store, they would take up a back
Speaker 1: bump because you don't want to fall on your side
Speaker 1: or could be a useful skill. Right. So I'm thinking
Speaker 1: you just need to train up the elderly. I think
Speaker 1: the elderly professional wrestlers in Japan will will be the
Speaker 1: really be the ones to try this out. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking about whole Kogan, like, you know, uh, carrying
Speaker 1: out these workshops for the elderly. Yeah. But you know,
Speaker 1: here's the thing though, too, that that's so cool about
Speaker 1: these airbags is that they can inflate in point one second,
Speaker 1: the time it takes for an old person to topple. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so actually that's really helpful. I mean if you're going
Speaker 1: to fall backward right um. And then there are partner
Speaker 1: robots that toyota Is has been creating and getting into
Speaker 1: the game of offering assistance for the elderly and the disabled. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, this is just like we're recording this what
Speaker 1: this is the second week in November the first I
Speaker 1: really can't keep track of this, okay, and and I
Speaker 1: have no idea when it's actually publishing, like the third
Speaker 1: or fourth week. Yeah, for you, it's like Halloween and
Speaker 1: then nothing else right, I'm getting it. Yeah, after Halloween
Speaker 1: is just this busy mess of holidays. Yeah, visits and
Speaker 1: trips and da da dada. Yeah. But um but but anyway,
Speaker 1: so that this first week of November actually a two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven Toyota Motor Corporation in Toyota City in Japan.
Speaker 1: I somehow was not aware that they Toyota had its
Speaker 1: own city in Japan. It's pretty um they were. They
Speaker 1: were really launching forward with this idea that Toyota is
Speaker 1: really concerned about about working on these bots, making a
Speaker 1: making a priority and partner bots are a big deal,
Speaker 1: and and and not just in nursing and healthcare, but
Speaker 1: also in personal transport, manufacturing, domestic duties like this all
Speaker 1: goes into the idea of if we are going to
Speaker 1: develop a future of work where robots are doing work
Speaker 1: for us, we want to develop robots that can learn
Speaker 1: tasks alongside humans and then eventually do them on their own.
Speaker 1: Can you get that peanut butter for me? Right? So, so,
Speaker 1: like the first logical step, well maybe not the first,
Speaker 1: but one of the first logical steps definitely a stopover
Speaker 1: on the way to this future is the reality of
Speaker 1: helper bots. A bot that's going to help a human
Speaker 1: with various tasks. So you end up with basically like
Speaker 1: four different areas that that are essential as laid out
Speaker 1: by Toyota. One independent walk assist all right, and this
Speaker 1: is the idea of just supporting independent walking for people
Speaker 1: whose ability has been impaired. UM. So these are sort
Speaker 1: of like you fit your legs into this device, yes,
Speaker 1: and it will actually help you. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: has some sort of nomadic device in it, but it
Speaker 1: will help you actually get upstairs, walk around. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like an exosuth skeleton, or at least a limited exo skeleton. Um.
Speaker 1: No nanocarbon tubes in it. Strength, No like super Terminator
Speaker 1: power armor with with power axes and all that. But
Speaker 1: but but still you know it's it's the the the
Speaker 1: idea is that say the legs are weak or inoperable,
Speaker 1: but the exo skeleton around them can help do the
Speaker 1: walking or do the walking for them. Um. While training
Speaker 1: assists this is uh, this is a similar Balanced training assists.
Speaker 1: This is like robots developed to support balance function training
Speaker 1: with people with impaired balance. So it's think a combination
Speaker 1: of a two wheeled self balancing type deal with game
Speaker 1: elements aimed at making this kind of training enjoyable, right,
Speaker 1: So I mean that would be actually really helpful if
Speaker 1: you're if you're going through physical therapy as well, right,
Speaker 1: we're trying to regain and also bear in mind you're
Speaker 1: like gaming old people. But come on, we're talking about
Speaker 1: a lot. We're talking in a large part about today's uh,
Speaker 1: young or middle aged people, many of whom are gamers especially.
Speaker 1: You know, Japan has a big gaming culture as well.
Speaker 1: So imagine in the future, Yeah, there's gonna be Gamification
Speaker 1: of physical therapy is just a no brainer. Right. So
Speaker 1: right now there would be like a bingo program, right,
Speaker 1: but in the future it would be like, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know what like World of Warcraft for for our generation, yeah,
Speaker 1: or whatever, these retro games whatever is big in Japan.
Speaker 1: I don't know, the World of Warcraft is big in Japan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying, like we're like Futson around in
Speaker 1: our sunset years will be like, oh, let me just
Speaker 1: program this World Warcraft and and think about those great
Speaker 1: fuzzy memories of playing in my yester year yeah years. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the fourth area is patient Transfer assist and
Speaker 1: this is really I found this would be the most exciting.
Speaker 1: And this is the the idea that a lot of
Speaker 1: caring for not only the elderly, but anyone who, like,
Speaker 1: even people were just really sick before hospital for various things.
Speaker 1: A lot of the caregiving comes down to moving the
Speaker 1: patient around. Yeah, and it's physically demanding forge because yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're having to move. Just if you're moving a person,
Speaker 1: say they're not even particularly fragile, they don't have anything
Speaker 1: particularly wrong with them, you're still talking about moving a
Speaker 1: sizeable person from say their bad to a bathtub, from
Speaker 1: their bed to a toilet, moving them around just enough
Speaker 1: to even uh uh you know, to bathe them with
Speaker 1: a sponge bath or or or administer or bed pan
Speaker 1: type situation, or just to prevent bed sores and really
Speaker 1: immobile people. Um. The idea is that you have a
Speaker 1: robot with like a weight supporting arm that actually helps out.
Speaker 1: And some some really cool pictures of this um also
Speaker 1: surfaced from this Toyota event. And and then they're they're
Speaker 1: really cool because and I'm not I mean, they're also
Speaker 1: easy to kind of make fun of because it's like
Speaker 1: it's a robot helping a dude set on a toilet
Speaker 1: while a nurse helps. But but the thing is, like,
Speaker 1: if you put yourself in the in the mindset of
Speaker 1: that dude or that nurse, like this is awesome because
Speaker 1: suddenly you have a situation where only one nurse has
Speaker 1: to help this guy go to the bathroom, which is
Speaker 1: great for the nurses, great for the guy, and eventually
Speaker 1: could lead to the situation where this dude can have
Speaker 1: assistance using the restroom. Um, you know, the very private
Speaker 1: act that none of us want help with. I mean,
Speaker 1: most of us don't want We don't want help with
Speaker 1: it unless we're we're very young or very weird. We
Speaker 1: don't judge fetish. Okay, all right, right, if you like
Speaker 1: help going to the bathroom, that's great. But and if
Speaker 1: you but if you, but the idea is if the
Speaker 1: robot is helping you, then every I think more people
Speaker 1: can get into the idea. And independence two, which is
Speaker 1: a really important um you know when you're aging and
Speaker 1: um And again importantly, also if you're staffing a hospital
Speaker 1: to care for older people, the idea that one person
Speaker 1: or even zero actual humans are having to help with
Speaker 1: this task and they can therefore apply their skills elsewhere well,
Speaker 1: you know that I that I love potty humor and um,
Speaker 1: so of course when you showed me the video, I
Speaker 1: was going to react to it. But it wasn't just
Speaker 1: because the guy was being you know, I was sitting
Speaker 1: on the toilet with assistance. It was that he was
Speaker 1: wearing like like we're jogging pants, like you know, the
Speaker 1: ones that are really tight, and they were black and shiny,
Speaker 1: and then as you described, like this this sort of
Speaker 1: prison yellow and white striped shirt and pants over that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: well Toyota didn't want to actually bring a guy in
Speaker 1: stage and have a robot with pants down. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: It was just really distracting because I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't get it. Is he going to go running after this?
Speaker 1: Is he in prison both? I don't know. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: they could have gone more in the direction of the
Speaker 1: fire toilet. Remember the gator, that's that's what's coming home. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you're right. This was just in case anybody's never
Speaker 1: seen this, you can go onto YouTube and see this
Speaker 1: and uh, there is a woman that is using a toilet.
Speaker 1: It that is uh, it's the fire toilet, right is Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's basically a fire toilet. It's gas powered or gas
Speaker 1: powered flames down there that incinerate the the waste product
Speaker 1: that the one produces on the toilet. And again, this
Speaker 1: is fine, this is great, it's actually using navy ships.
Speaker 1: But again I take issue with the aesthetics of it
Speaker 1: because the woman, uh, she starts this video and she's
Speaker 1: got like, I don't know, maybe like a hundred keys
Speaker 1: on a ring, So you're kind of like, what's the deal,
Speaker 1: why do you have a hundred keys? And then she's
Speaker 1: got you know, maybe some sort of like Eastern block accent. Fine,
Speaker 1: but it just sort of adds to this ap like
Speaker 1: there's no nudity in it, but she's like visibly she's
Speaker 1: obviously dropping pants. She's not wearing some sort of black
Speaker 1: garment underneath. And and then there's actual flaming poosh shown,
Speaker 1: the flaming poush shown. They cut to a shot of
Speaker 1: her with all you know, her pants DOWMP, but then
Speaker 1: she's taken her boots and her socks off. It's all
Speaker 1: very It just gets weirder and weirder the longer this
Speaker 1: video goes on, a little bit like this podcast right now, well,
Speaker 1: you can go weird either way with with um with
Speaker 1: some sort of toilet technology demo, and that is to
Speaker 1: either go realistic or go um with a black body
Speaker 1: suit underneath your clothing. Yeah yeah, so okay, I got
Speaker 1: my attention. Nonetheless, so let's let's talk nuts and bolts
Speaker 1: about this too. Like, you know what, when we're talking
Speaker 1: about building a better boty and we're really thinking about
Speaker 1: it more as you know, we're gonna anthropomorphise it and
Speaker 1: think about it as us. Right, this is this version
Speaker 1: of ourselves. What are we thinking about? Well, one of
Speaker 1: the big things is sensitivity to the environment that the
Speaker 1: robot is working in and um on one level, that
Speaker 1: involves just being able to move through it, being able
Speaker 1: to navigate it, but also being able to just think
Speaker 1: of your sense of touch. Um. Like. The best example
Speaker 1: of this for me would be astronaut gloves. Like, one
Speaker 1: of the big issues with astronaut gloves has been you
Speaker 1: you put these guys up in space and they're gonna
Speaker 1: be working on something really delicate, but they can't just
Speaker 1: take their gloves off and work with their bare hands. Obviously,
Speaker 1: they have to wear gloves, and you cannot wear normal gloves,
Speaker 1: especially normal big thick gloves or space without losing a
Speaker 1: certain amount of sensitivity. Now, with a robot you're building,
Speaker 1: you're just building it all up from the bottom up.
Speaker 1: So like where do you where do you put the
Speaker 1: sensors on the on the feelers or on the body itself? Uh?
Speaker 1: Could you give it a skin that enables it to
Speaker 1: feel all over like a person? Right, so if it
Speaker 1: bumped into you, it would know, It would know if
Speaker 1: you bumped into it. And I also just think of manipulation,
Speaker 1: Like even just imagine that the robot just had the
Speaker 1: feeling of a human hand on its manipulators. It would
Speaker 1: enable it to be far more delicate with something. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in this case, it would be handling delicate things.
Speaker 1: It would be handling us sponge bath for instance. Right,
Speaker 1: you don't want something that's just a big metal um
Speaker 1: claw on the end of a of an arm. You
Speaker 1: want something that has a certain amount of sensitivity to it. Right,
Speaker 1: you don't want to get bashed over the head with
Speaker 1: a bar of soap. Yeah. Um. So yeah, there's this
Speaker 1: thing called robot skin. And this says this is from
Speaker 1: a Fast Companies article. Robot skin can feel touched, sense chemicals,
Speaker 1: and soak up solar power. It says, what we're talking
Speaker 1: about is a super intelligent skin designed by Stanford University researcher.
Speaker 1: It's solar powered and when the skin is subjected to pressure,
Speaker 1: the current flowing through the embedded transistors is modified as
Speaker 1: tiny pyramid shapes molded into the polymer layer compress, resulting
Speaker 1: in a super sensitive transducer that can apparently detect the
Speaker 1: pressure from a house flies feet So cool criss cross
Speaker 1: nanimator scale wires talk with a thin rubber sheet. I
Speaker 1: like it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I just think that
Speaker 1: it's it's an amazing technology in and of itself. And
Speaker 1: of course they think that too, because it's not just
Speaker 1: for androids all that that's what was intended for um,
Speaker 1: they can also use it to coat cars or military
Speaker 1: vehicles or even soldiers uniforms could act as biosensors and
Speaker 1: solar power generators. And also think of the possibilities for prosthetics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again for um, for astronaut gloves or or even
Speaker 1: like forget the astronaut, for um, like a robotic exploring
Speaker 1: probe where a person could say, put on a pair
Speaker 1: of a pair of gloves on Earth and feel with
Speaker 1: the very human tactile response. Uh An object on another planet, right,
Speaker 1: and try to describe that in the texture of it
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. Um, of course I
Speaker 1: can't help but think that it's going to be used
Speaker 1: on Roxy the robot. This is the sex spot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's on the market right now. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: in the words of of Arkin, the professor. Arkin, that's
Speaker 1: a bad robot. That's just not like a very good robot.
Speaker 1: I know, but it's something that could sor But I
Speaker 1: don't see Roxy getting the kind of funding where she
Speaker 1: can benefit from this kind of Seah. They're going to
Speaker 1: have to do something about that tinny voice first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it says things like that gets me hot. Well,
Speaker 1: well you bring up Roxy. As I recall, Roxy was
Speaker 1: originally a nursing project and then they decided that they
Speaker 1: wanted to make some fast cash on it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: how all innovation seems to be generated these days. But
Speaker 1: let's talk about let's talk about this thing called the
Speaker 1: jazz robot and mirror neurons, because this is really important, um,
Speaker 1: in terms of how we communicate with one another, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this comes down to it again. We're talking about
Speaker 1: you want to robot that can live in a human environment,
Speaker 1: which is not just dealing with a human space in
Speaker 1: a safe way, but also dealing with the presence of
Speaker 1: humans and being able to read them and uh and
Speaker 1: so this this is something that just comes naturally to
Speaker 1: humans because we have we we grow up around other humans,
Speaker 1: most humans anyway. Um, we we have this theory of mind.
Speaker 1: And anytime you're encountering somebody, you're you're picking up in
Speaker 1: so many different things. You're picking up on on what
Speaker 1: they're saying, their tone there there, what their eyes are doing,
Speaker 1: what their hands are doing, what they're you know, their
Speaker 1: basic expression, their body language, all these different factories because
Speaker 1: you're trying to get into their head, right, which inadvertently
Speaker 1: allows you to empathize with another person. Right, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: And so like if you smile, than then you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere in my muscles I start to smile back, and
Speaker 1: I started to start to send these signals to my
Speaker 1: brain that this is funny or we're having fun or
Speaker 1: or something along those lines, right, And that's how that's
Speaker 1: how we communicate with one another, right, We we read
Speaker 1: so many different signals. So could you could you create
Speaker 1: a robot create more to the point, could you create
Speaker 1: an artificial intelligence, so it's capable of quickly analyzing all
Speaker 1: that data and at least getting some somewhats of what
Speaker 1: the mood is because uh, and imagine in a nursing environment. Uh,
Speaker 1: this would in theory enable a robot to tell if
Speaker 1: an individual was having some sort of an episode, if
Speaker 1: they were they were distraught over something, if they were
Speaker 1: in pain. Uh. I mean, especially with I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: like Alzheimer's patients. Uh, you know, off hand, because a
Speaker 1: lot of times these are people who aren't in a
Speaker 1: condition anymore to really express what they're feelings, you know,
Speaker 1: so you really need a human to be able to
Speaker 1: check on them. But if the human is not immediately available,
Speaker 1: then it would be nice to have a robot that
Speaker 1: would be able to say, oh, well, this person is
Speaker 1: experiencing some degree of pain. Um, we need to get
Speaker 1: somebody here to check on them, right, right. And so
Speaker 1: this is the the idea of this Jazz robot, which
Speaker 1: is by the way funded by the European Union because
Speaker 1: they've got some interest in this right into creating this
Speaker 1: technology to help the population as a whole. And it
Speaker 1: is um it's predicated on the notion of mirror neurons, right,
Speaker 1: it's trying to use the same sort of circuitry model, okay,
Speaker 1: and the way that the robot can predict behavior. So
Speaker 1: it's actually trying to analyze the person's behavior and figure
Speaker 1: out when there's been an error. Of course, when we
Speaker 1: talk about UM, you know the more complex things like
Speaker 1: checking in on a person and seeing if they're emotionally okay,
Speaker 1: this is not something that the robot can do quite yet,
Speaker 1: but these are the first steps. And so, for instance,
Speaker 1: the robots were programmed to help a person assemble a
Speaker 1: complicated toy UM. These robots could analyze the person's actions
Speaker 1: as a person worked on the assemblage and then offer
Speaker 1: suggestions by locating the proper tool to complete the assembly.
Speaker 1: So at this point it's more like a helper a
Speaker 1: partner robot, which I think is really interesting by the way,
Speaker 1: the semantics of that a partner robot UM. But it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily something that can be like, hey, how are
Speaker 1: you feeling today? You know, would you like some soup?
Speaker 1: It's cold outside? But maybe I mean these again, these
Speaker 1: are the first steps to try and to get robots
Speaker 1: to be able to deal with the complex machines that
Speaker 1: we are right, of course, this would make us want
Speaker 1: to dress up our robots, right well, yeah, and you
Speaker 1: can already dress up your household robots to certain degree.
Speaker 1: You can buy these, uh like furry covers to put
Speaker 1: over your yea, And we're going to talk about that
Speaker 1: and a bit right after this. This podcast is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the
Speaker 1: Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity is the spark
Speaker 1: which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity dot com and
Speaker 1: explore the answers to life's questions. So we're dressing up
Speaker 1: our robe, yes, putting furry costumes in our room bas
Speaker 1: so that they look like circular mice or something I
Speaker 1: don't know, with faces on top. Maybe we just want
Speaker 1: them to you know, buddy up to the cat more.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, a little friend for the cat.
Speaker 1: Let's not forget the pets out there, right And and
Speaker 1: there is the you know, the whole idea. Do you
Speaker 1: want to make the to make it more the ro
Speaker 1: about more relatable? A do we make it look more
Speaker 1: human and be does the the operator, the owner or
Speaker 1: the beneficiary of its service have some input into how
Speaker 1: it dresses well, Okay, so the Swedish Institute of Computer
Speaker 1: Science has actually been studying how much we have the
Speaker 1: ability to anthropomorphize robots by dressing up some off the
Speaker 1: shelf bots they are available right now, which I think
Speaker 1: is funny. Right, So they're taking um, you know, something
Speaker 1: like the pleio the pet dinosaur, and they've been giving
Speaker 1: or that actually have been programming it so that you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you change the outfit, it will actually
Speaker 1: act differently accordingly to how you dress up your your
Speaker 1: pet dinosaur. So also, you know, just keep in mind
Speaker 1: that the that pleo is able to learn as you play,
Speaker 1: and uh so you know, you can manipulate its behavior
Speaker 1: a bit. So if you give Cleo a special watchdog necklace,
Speaker 1: the robot remains active and on guard and putting you know,
Speaker 1: air quotes on on guard. You can change the costume
Speaker 1: from um that necklace to pajamas and the robot would
Speaker 1: slowly switch into sleep mode. The costumes or accessors you
Speaker 1: choose communicate electronically with robots program and just behavior follows suit. Okay,
Speaker 1: so these are just a couple of things that you
Speaker 1: can do. And they've also experimented with the roomba, which
Speaker 1: I think is really interesting. They have these patches that
Speaker 1: they put on the roomba and again it will behave
Speaker 1: accordingly to to whatever this patch is displaying. So they've
Speaker 1: got a patch that can make the ruma seem aggressive
Speaker 1: or curious or shy. It'll actually like hide under the sofa.
Speaker 1: And the whole idea is that robots can seem more
Speaker 1: natural like these are the first steps again to trying
Speaker 1: to you know, make us feel a little bit more
Speaker 1: comfortable with robots in our atmosphere and too, and to
Speaker 1: study how we behave and how we really project our
Speaker 1: feelings onto these inanimate objects. And as we discussed in
Speaker 1: the last podcasts, sometimes that is people just taking out
Speaker 1: their aggressions on the robots. Yes, yeah, yeah, And again
Speaker 1: I think that this is also in conjunction with lyric program,
Speaker 1: which is the living with Robots program that we talked
Speaker 1: about before. Robot House. Robot House. Yeah again, that a
Speaker 1: great reality series just you know, waiting to be made.
Speaker 1: Well if this leads us in inevitably to the Uncanny
Speaker 1: Valley and discussion of the Uncanny Valley um, This term,
Speaker 1: of course, is thrown around a lot, especially in terms
Speaker 1: of Hollywood animated films, video games. We we've all seen
Speaker 1: it before. You're they're trying to create a lifelike semblance
Speaker 1: of a human being saying, you know, a cut scene
Speaker 1: in a game or or what was it the Polar
Speaker 1: Express movie with Tom Hanks? Oh yeah, which apparently that
Speaker 1: was just a tragedy, a huge mistake, right because everybody
Speaker 1: or most people know who Tom Hanks is very warm
Speaker 1: and engaging person, right at least that's the perstpona that
Speaker 1: comes off, and all of a sudden you have a
Speaker 1: dead eyed Tom Hanks and it's very wearing his face
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, yes, yes, leather face in a Christmas tail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh. This this all goes back to the paper
Speaker 1: in the journal Energy where roboticist Masahiro Mori proposed that
Speaker 1: robots that are too human light can veer into unsettling
Speaker 1: territory and basically to get real like number centric about it, Um,
Speaker 1: you can make a robot up to realistic theory, says
Speaker 1: and it's great, like, oh, this robot is looks like
Speaker 1: a person. That's amazing, that's awesome. But then once you
Speaker 1: hit that the like the the the space between and
Speaker 1: a human look is just creepy that's the that's the theory.
Speaker 1: That's the theory. And the theory is that on a
Speaker 1: psychological level of minds are perceiving the robot human effects
Speaker 1: similar as as dead right or an unhealthy human or
Speaker 1: you know, on some I guess primal level, like it's decaying,
Speaker 1: it's not alive, and so we back away. Again. This
Speaker 1: is the theory. There's so there's some disagreements on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, especially when you get outside of its applications
Speaker 1: in entertainment and really start looking at robotics again where
Speaker 1: where the term was originally um, you know, discussed and
Speaker 1: there there's some studies that have found that that really
Speaker 1: it's more about the mismatch. It's about it has really
Speaker 1: cool looking skin scan looks very human, but they the
Speaker 1: eyes are obviously mechanical, are too big and so they're
Speaker 1: not matching up to the rest of your expectation, and
Speaker 1: that's what's unsettling. There's a there's an interesting book called
Speaker 1: The wind Up Girl. I think I may mention it
Speaker 1: before Sci Fi book tied for Hugo Award last year,
Speaker 1: I think and uh. The title character, the wind Up Girl,
Speaker 1: is an artificial human that is created by Japanese scientists,
Speaker 1: and this is in the future and all. But they
Speaker 1: end up programming um they call him heard the wind
Speaker 1: wind up girl, or they call them wind up girls
Speaker 1: because they have programmed in and um it kind of
Speaker 1: wind up movement to their bodies that they can't quite control.
Speaker 1: Oh so they don't have smooth motor coordinations, right, because
Speaker 1: they didn't want them to look too human. They wanted
Speaker 1: to keep the uncanny valley um in place to a
Speaker 1: certain degree so that they would be marked. Uh uh okay.
Speaker 1: So this is sort of like the whole problem in
Speaker 1: Blade Runner with replicants, right, figure out which is a replicant? Yeah,
Speaker 1: who's the human? Who's They said, instead of giving it
Speaker 1: a complicated test about a turtle on offense post to
Speaker 1: bring the whole empathy thing into play, let's just watch
Speaker 1: him walk down the street and you'll be able to
Speaker 1: tell right away. Um. So, So anyway, there's the one
Speaker 1: idea that it's a mismatch. It's like, oh, it looks
Speaker 1: like a person, but it's moving weird uncanny valley um.
Speaker 1: But then there have been some other recent studies, like
Speaker 1: there was one study by Carl McDorman, director of Android
Speaker 1: Science Center at Indiana University, and uh, he found that
Speaker 1: the uncanny effects seemed to be tied to gender. They
Speaker 1: found that they yeah, they rolled out some various robots
Speaker 1: and uh, and they found that women subjects were sympathetic
Speaker 1: to UM the the to the requests of the robot um,
Speaker 1: whether they were represented as a person or poorly poorly
Speaker 1: rendered computer animation. Okay, this is this the scenario where
Speaker 1: they're they're acting at this role as doctor and these
Speaker 1: are patients. So one is a human patient on one
Speaker 1: is UM a computer value. Well that's right, they're not
Speaker 1: really robots, but it's you know, it's the idea of
Speaker 1: here's here's a person, here's a facsimile of a person UM,
Speaker 1: and then let's see how they respond to it. And
Speaker 1: the men sided with the real patient, but not the
Speaker 1: uncanny computer generated one, where the women were far more
Speaker 1: likely to side with the sympathetic one because they had
Speaker 1: empathy across the board, right, which interesting enough, I think
Speaker 1: ties in nicely something we discussed in the one of
Speaker 1: our early episodes about a year ago. Uh, the idea
Speaker 1: that in the future the human race will be composed
Speaker 1: entirely of women in their robotic partners that's right, ready
Speaker 1: to talk about that, yes, Uh, and for for many,
Speaker 1: many many reasons. Uh, this is not actually probably going
Speaker 1: to come to fruition, but I think I think it might.
Speaker 1: I think I think it will because look at it.
Speaker 1: The men can't get along with anybody. They can't get
Speaker 1: along with the men, they can't get along with the
Speaker 1: women all that well, and they can't get along with
Speaker 1: the robots. Well. But you know, I always take issue
Speaker 1: with it because I think, well, yeah, women are great.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I'm one of them. But that
Speaker 1: does not make us like altruistic, like you know, the
Speaker 1: best humans on the earth. I mean, I'm going to
Speaker 1: say it, we're a little bit flawed. Well wait, way
Speaker 1: to cover up for the female in so many different ways. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm digging myself in here a little bit. Agreading
Speaker 1: a really interesting article in Popular Mechanics called the Truth
Speaker 1: about Robotic Robotics on Kenny Valley, and they discussed several
Speaker 1: of these different studies and scenarios, and they ended up
Speaker 1: making the case that that when it comes to robots,
Speaker 1: this the Uncanny Valley is largely hypothetical, and it largely
Speaker 1: becomes less of an issue when humans are actually face
Speaker 1: to face with the robots and dealing with the robots
Speaker 1: on a on a on a one on one basis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I read too, is that you know, it's
Speaker 1: just the uncanny Valley is just a big sweeping generalization
Speaker 1: and that um, you know, it's basically a short lived
Speaker 1: psychological state that we're in when we're looking at the ropebot.
Speaker 1: But once you get comfortable with it, that all of
Speaker 1: that sort of falls away and you begin to project
Speaker 1: your feelings onto it no matter what it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like anytime we humans deal with with other humans
Speaker 1: and encounter a little bit of the uncanny valley, which
Speaker 1: if you if you're ever talking to somebody for the
Speaker 1: first time and they maybe have like one of their
Speaker 1: eyes is you know, pointing out a little to the side,
Speaker 1: kind of like a Forest Whittaker type of thing. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, it can be it can be a little
Speaker 1: like off putting it first, but then you get used
Speaker 1: to it, and because it's as the person you know
Speaker 1: and uh and you uh, you sort of jive with
Speaker 1: their particular appearance and their particular energy, or even if
Speaker 1: it's just something as weird as like somebody's got a
Speaker 1: strange scar or strange blemish on their face, or you know,
Speaker 1: a satan goatee or something, I don't know. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you think that Unkenny Valley underestimates our ability to to
Speaker 1: be adaptable and flexible and and actually our empathy to right. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we tend to overcome a lot of these things.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like with noise. You know, people were like, oh,
Speaker 1: how can somebody live next to train tracks or how
Speaker 1: or next to an airport, But people do live next
Speaker 1: train stations and airports, etcetera. And they get used to
Speaker 1: it because humans can adapt to to not everything, but
Speaker 1: to almost anything. So this, this is something that I've
Speaker 1: been wondering about. I know that the voice recognition is
Speaker 1: a big problem with robots right now, at least a
Speaker 1: technology that exists that something along the lines of of
Speaker 1: these programs can success fully take what you're saying and
Speaker 1: actually understand it and respond accordingly. So that's something that
Speaker 1: in the future, obviously that it's gonna will be, you know, solved. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe I only here what I'm listening to,
Speaker 1: so well, yeah, exactly, I know, right, So it could
Speaker 1: be as good as any caregiver out there. Um, but
Speaker 1: I sort of wondered, like now that that Surrey is
Speaker 1: on the new iPhone, like, is this you know apparently
Speaker 1: like this voice of recognition technology is great and we'll
Speaker 1: only get better. So I would like to hear from
Speaker 1: people who have Surrey right now and see, you know,
Speaker 1: would you say that she has an eight or better
Speaker 1: chance at guessing what you're saying? And why is she
Speaker 1: named after Tom Cruise's child right exactly? Why why his daughter?
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some sort of Steve Jobs joke in
Speaker 1: there that that that's a great unsolved mystery. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's some ideas about where caregiving robots are going
Speaker 1: in the future, what the technology is looking like now,
Speaker 1: how it's shaping up, and what it might look like.
Speaker 1: So I would be very interested to hear from everyone
Speaker 1: out there, I mean, what you think about this, uh,
Speaker 1: through yourselves going forward, and especially anybody who has dealt
Speaker 1: with caregiving situations, you know, be it a you know,
Speaker 1: a parent or a grandparent, um, you know for yourself
Speaker 1: or I mean yeah, so, um, and also your robot,
Speaker 1: your caregiving robot naked or dressed up. That's what I
Speaker 1: want to know well or yeah, or more to the point,
Speaker 1: So a robot, say, robots helping you use the restroom
Speaker 1: in your in your your golden years. Do you do
Speaker 1: you want it to look like a person? Do you
Speaker 1: want it to look like a bear? You wanted to
Speaker 1: look like just a thing? Do you want it to
Speaker 1: basically look like a you know, a side table that
Speaker 1: you know that lifts up and down. I don't know well,
Speaker 1: and you know, do you want the sort of end
Speaker 1: user features that your iPhone has so that you can change,
Speaker 1: you know, certain aspects of its appearance. You know it's
Speaker 1: screen um, particularly when you go to the to the
Speaker 1: red stroum. Yeah. And then and then this also ties
Speaker 1: in you have a robot is helping you go to
Speaker 1: the restroom. Yeah. Privacy issues coming to play too, because
Speaker 1: if you have a robot that, in order to navigate
Speaker 1: your space is constantly recording, constantly taking note of everything,
Speaker 1: you don't want your bathroom helper robot to get a
Speaker 1: virus or get hated. You know that's right, Ryan, Then
Speaker 1: just you know, all of a sudden updates your Facebook
Speaker 1: page and whatever that's going to be in the future
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, my charge just went to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: Ha ha ha, Yeah, you don't want it tweeting about like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I mean. Maybe people was coming
Speaker 1: from the right place. The robots like yeah, another successful
Speaker 1: batt movement, and then it tweets it. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if that these are
Speaker 1: missives that we need to care about. Maybe in the
Speaker 1: future that's what people will want. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: have our helper bought hand us a listener mail. Thank you,
Speaker 1: helper boy. So we heard this time from I listened
Speaker 1: by the name of Mark Healing, and I'm using his
Speaker 1: full name because Mark is an artist and uh he
Speaker 1: has a fan page on Facebook. You can check it
Speaker 1: out and as all all his art shared there. It's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome, uh Mark Mark Wrightson and says, I just
Speaker 1: finished listening to your most recent episode about art. This
Speaker 1: would be this. U is your brand on art, and
Speaker 1: I was very pleased to hear a different perspective on
Speaker 1: some of the artists that I've been setting for the
Speaker 1: past few years. Currently, I'm a student at Emily car
Speaker 1: University of Art and Design in Vancouver, where I'm in
Speaker 1: my final year. For a while now, I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about the idea of an eight beauty. A concept like symmetry,
Speaker 1: for example, expresses itself as a visual that has been
Speaker 1: that has an inherent appeal in biological terms, a mate,
Speaker 1: of course, is more attractive if their features appear more symmetrical. Uh.
Speaker 1: This idea is pretty straightforward. Beyond just the sexual appeal
Speaker 1: of symmetry, however, there is also the specific optical effect
Speaker 1: which occurs when an image, whether very simply or complex,
Speaker 1: is near. In regards to my practice, I attempt to
Speaker 1: be very conscious of these notions notions of an eight beauty.
Speaker 1: Um and he goes on. He shares a lot of
Speaker 1: really cool ideas with us, and he says that I'd
Speaker 1: be very pleased to be able to look at my
Speaker 1: Facebook page. Hopefully some of what I am talking about
Speaker 1: will become a little more apparent. If you go to
Speaker 1: the first image in my galery, you will find find
Speaker 1: my biggest project so far, which is taking about a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy four hours at this point. What he's
Speaker 1: done with point zero zero three millimeter dots in order
Speaker 1: to further pursue visual complexity, which has its own specific
Speaker 1: capacity for drawing interviewer at least I hope. So anyways,
Speaker 1: that is it. I really appreciate your podcast and I
Speaker 1: have been a regular listener since way back when you
Speaker 1: were still stuff in the Science leave. The show just
Speaker 1: gets getting better and better. Thank you very much, Mark.
Speaker 1: Thanks Mark. I was so pleased that we heard from
Speaker 1: an artist on this because you know, you and I
Speaker 1: are artists with words and the written page. I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know that might be going a little too far,
Speaker 1: but I did want to hear from a visual artist,
Speaker 1: to hear their take on what beauty is and symmetry
Speaker 1: and some of these different ideas that we were talking about. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: And and do check out his Facebook page if you
Speaker 1: want to see his art. I think it's like facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash m r k uh dot I l
Speaker 1: l I check that out, and certainly any other artists
Speaker 1: out there that are listening to us. So we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear what you had to say about the art
Speaker 1: on the Brain podcast. And you know, we'd love to
Speaker 1: share our examples of your work on our Facebook page,
Speaker 1: so let us know. And if you would like to
Speaker 1: share any of that u with us, be it on
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter. And if you have anything to say
Speaker 1: about help our robots and the future against Facebook, Twitter.
Speaker 1: Blow the mind on both of this, and you can
Speaker 1: always drop us a line at blow of the Mind
Speaker 1: at how stuff worth dot com. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
Speaker 1: how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
Speaker 1: and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.