From this blog I found an interesting talk about personal robots in everyday live. The video and the discussions on thewebpage really stimulate my thoughts in relation to this course.
Summary of the blog dsiscussion:
The talk is held by Cynthia Breazeal, who is a roboticist building personal robots that are socially intelligent i.e. interact and communicate with people. In the video she talks about her discovery, which is human interact with robot like it is a person & robot responds to human's non-verbal cues. This finding helps in 1) developing new scientific tool to understand human behaviour, 2) expanding new communication technology by using physical social embodiment to help distant relationships, 3) supporting health issue by applying robot in maintaining diet and managing exercise program and 4) evolving children's media to have kid's imagination in real world. She emphasised "robots touch something deeply human within us" and "robots are all about people".
My reflection on the blog discussion:
In week 2 lecture, I learnt that it may not be a true interaction if the robot does not understand what a person said while people did not care whether they were really understood. (Turkle, 2007, p. 503) The authenticity is in doubt. But here, Cynthia built robots interact with human.
The robot Leonardo learnt about new object from watching human's reaction.
The human-robot Nexi helps researcher to learn that people respond with robot like they respond to people.
Cynthia even pushed the children's media further from Tamagotchis to character coming off the screen to the real world and even letting kids create their own imagination in the real world. It does not only reinforce the emotional connection and the fantasy of reciprocation, but also the human susceptibility.
However, the aliveness of robots, i.e. expression and gestures, causes illusion of relationship. Robot does not have emotions; the emotions are only generated by program code. And what if the technology is applied to adult games? If the character of the game, for example a young sexy female, can come off the screen and have interaction with players, illusion of relationship will confuse the definition of love and diminish the human uniqueness.
Continuing the example of applying the technology to adult games, what will happen when player can have their imagination in the real world? Will the technology be used to fulfill male gaze, reinforce their masculinist power and worsen the gender issues?
Her study of new communication technology, including her invention Mebot and ideas about the future, can be treated as a cyborg.
Mebot is a robot accessory for mobile phone, that can fully express human's reaction. It can mimic human's gesture to the other side of the phone call. She even imagined sooner or later, there will be a robot accessory for the computer that can enable human to actively interact with others in distance.
Mebot = Me+robot, neither fully human nor fully machine, just like JenniCam. (Adam and Jimroglou, 2001, p. 288) It blurs the dualities of human and machine and combines the mobile phone with body. In order to contact with relatives and friends in other parts of the world, people will have a close relationship with the robot/machine. Thus, Mebot is a cyborg.
At last, the video and the discussion below have triggered me to rethink whether this kind of human-robot helps to break the boundary between human and machine or contrarily emphasises the superiority of human over machine. Although viewers generally appreciate the technology enhancement, some of them commented that they would much prefer real human interaction rather than with robot. Some even thought it is ridiculous and harmful for children to play between virtual and real world. For me, I would like to have a Mebot, since it would really help me to contact with my friends oversea. But I also feel it would be dangerous for my future children to confuse between virtual and the real world. And if I really intend to keep fit, I will not need a robot to remind me. I think robot in these two cases is just an unnecessary additive. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to learn about so many new developments of robot.
No comments:
Post a Comment