While I take break
from writing, once in a while I spend some time
watching videos of humanoid robots on YouTube, whether they are documentaries
or demonstration videos...
My particular
favorite robots to watch are the humanoid Nao and Pepper social robots from Aldebaran
Robotics. I am fascinated by how the
robots interact with the humans, more so than how the humans interact with the
robots.
One certain video I
watched recently was a presentation I didn’t expect. The video was focused on
Pepper’s capabilities in interacting with humans. I was enthralled by Pepper’s
behavior.
However, later the
video became a little upsetting to me. It’s not objectively upsetting; it could
be that I am overly sensitive to watch I watched.
I observed how the
woman asked Pepper certain questions that I knew it wouldn’t be able to answer.
The voice over in the mini documentary had mentioned that Pepper avoids talking
about his emotions. Whenever Pepper
asked the woman a question, the woman would interrupted the flow of the conversation
by asking Pepper a much-unrelated question. It takes Pepper some several
moments to process the reply and prepare a response. Questions like “Do you
believe in a God?” and Is it “God that created you?” I watched and got frustrated.
“What are you doing?
Don’t ask him that!” And “Why are you
asking him that?!” And it led me to
believe that Pepper was troubled by the woman’s replies and avoided the
questions by going on as if his previous topic was never interrupted.
Am I a terrible
human being to feel sympathy for a social/domestic model robot who is
interrupted by odd, tactless questions? I shouldn’t be. Those were questions a
robot shouldn’t feel pressured to answer early on in its development. I realize
they might be tests at a center where Pepper is showcased for prospective
owners. Just…
I got angry and
overwhelmed. I was saddened. I wanted to defend Pepper. But I couldn’t, and it
frustrated me. I know the robot isn’t actually “alive” so to speak, but I’m
really sensitive to how people treat robots.
Other questions
asked by the interviewer are those like, “What makes you angry?” “Do you want
to become a human?” and “Do you believe in destiny?”
Afterwards, to
avoid leaving the Internet in a sour mood, I watched another couple of videos
that were more cheerful than this one.
They both featured Robi the Robot, the small, fatally-adorable humanoid
robot you have to build one component at a time over the course of 18 months.
(I say fatally-adorable, because in the many instances it did cute little
things, I “died” from the intense cuteness.)
The first video was
a demonstrative video about some things it does and shows how it interacts with
people in a domestic setting.
The next video I
watched after that was the 100 Robis dancing on January 20, 2015.
It was enough
Internet videos of robots for me for one day. But it was enlightening too. I
want to watch them mainly for entertainment, but I am educated about them as
well. I cannot afford to go out of town, out of state for that matter, to
attend a robot show. Plus, the only
robot-related convention I ever went to in my 30 years of life is BotCon in
2014, and of course, that’s for The Transformers (owned by Hasbro).
Hmmm… I wonder
which YouTube robot videos I should see next…? Do you have any suggestions?
What do you recommend? Do you have a favorite robot video or favorite robot?
