With the advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, the new social robots can help with household chores and become our daily companions. Japanese consumers have already got used with humanoid-looking robots.
Social robots are clearly having a future in Japan. There, SoftBank and Aldebaran Robotics achieved the performance to sold out all their 1,000 Pepper humanoid robots in less than one minute. The two companies are partenering now with Foxconn and Alibaba to bring Pepper to various locations, such as hotels and restaurants.
When most of us thing of robots, the Terminators might come to mind. Beyond the silver screen and Hollywood depictions, others still associate real life robots just with the dumb industrial varieties. But lately, there is another type of robot that is getting trendy. These new class of robots are called social robots. They are designed for our homes, to be our companions and house chores helpers. They come with a price tag under $800-$1,000 dollars. They are meant to be our personal companions, to be "part of the family". They look more WALL-E rather than Terminator.
For all those still afraid of robots and believing the dystopia stories about the perils of artificial intelligence, the social robots are meant to disarm all our worries. They are cute, with their cartoon smiley face painted on them, like the new Buddy companion robot designed by the French robotics firm Blue Frog. Buddy casters and whisks around on wheels, while another social robot, JIBO, swivels harmlessly on your floor or desk. They don't have legs or arms. But they can read stories to your children instead or take family photos. While it is true that they aren't much more intelligent than some smartwatch or smartphone apps, at least you have the peace of mind that is no need to worry about the perils of super artificial intelligence.
These social robots are advertised as machines that can perform many of the house chores and tasks that people typically outsource to many different house appliances and gadgets. A social robot is part Dropcam, part Nest and part iPhone, all connected by a tablet that features face and voice recognition. For Buddy, the designers found an innovative solution and this tablet device is actually the robot's "face".
However, what's really innovative about these robots is not their technology, but the very idea that they are destined to become part of the "connected home". The idea of the "Internet of Things" for the home, just a few years back, still sounded futuristic. Now it doesn't look anything futuristic to have our thermostats and smoke alarms connected to the internet. And then, if is nothing extraordinary in connection our home to the internet, why not having a robot at home as well? When it comes to the price matters, you can buy a smartphone or a tablet for $300. Only for a few hundred dollars more you can get a social robot for your home. This is not a fortune, by any means.
Of course, some are still skeptical about these social robots. They argue that we need to consider carefully the privacy aspects of having some robot wandering around, taking photos of you and your family, and potentially having them shared with the wrong people on the internet. After all, even the Google Photos apps is still storing our photos online even far after we uninstall the application from our smartphone, isn't it? Or, you should also consider the prospect of having an outsider hacking into your home robot and downloading your personal information. Besides all these worries, we like it or not, these robots are coming, and we better get used with the idea.
Social robots such as Buddy, Pepper or JIBO do not feature true artificial intelligence. However, they are some kind of hybrid machine that provides some sort of ambient intelligence and interacts with us everywhere we go. They can mark a step beyond just our smartphone app assistants fby giving an anthropomorphic shape to that "intelligence".
