The rise of friendly robots – 06/15/2023 – Tech

The word robot was, for years, associated with a machine with an impersonal or threatening face, similar to the famous “Terminator”, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This frightening imagery dissipated when robots arrived in everyday life, particularly in countries like Japan, where machines already accompany human beings — like the elderly or children with special needs.

The VivaTech conference, the most important of the technological sector at European level, in Paris, confirmed, this year, the arrival of technology.

How does he move? What do you look like?

A few years ago, a robot dog from the company Boston Dynamics surprised people and achieved “fame” due to its fine motor skills… but, at the same time, it scared people because it didn’t have a visible head.

Now, the aesthetics of these inventions oscillate between comic book characters and 1980s-style games.

“At the beginning, we realized that children could be a little scared,” explained Do Hwan Kim, owner of the South Korean company Neubility, explaining the evolution of his home delivery robot.

In order to solve the problem, Neubility modernized with two big eyes on the robot, a way to insert sympathy in the big machine in cube shape and rounded curves.

Dozens of robots already roam university campuses, campgrounds or golf courses in South Korea every day.

With the arrival of these robots, studies that analyze the interaction between machines and humans were also carried out.

The industrial design of these devices has undergone a major change, according to one of the leading experts in the sector, Kerstin Dautenhahn, from the University of Waterloo, Canada.

“What you’re seeing in many, many industries is people are very interested in finding out how robots move, what they look like and how to interact with them,” she says.

This idea applies both to simple robots for production lines, where they share space with human workers, and to those in the domestic environment.

“Even in the case of robots that simply need to transport objects from place A to B, people want to know how they are going to express their intentions”, commented the expert.

Big ears and face that lights up

The company Enchanted Tools, from France, offers different names and even appearances, depending on the “gender” of the chosen robot.

One of the models has big ears, like a cat or a rabbit, and a face that lights up.
The company’s president, Jerome Monceaux, believes that his robot fits perfectly in a hospital, or in places with contact with the public, such as hotels or restaurants.

In Japan and South Korea, robots have already become socially accepted, Dautenhahn said.

“Saying you want to build a robot that helps seniors in a nursing home live a happier life, in Japan is considered a great idea,” he explained.

In European countries, however, there is much more distrust — fueled by a dark vision of the future, linked to science fiction. “We still have a lot of persuasion to do,” he added.

Europe was, in the 19th century, the scene of Luddism – a prelude to the Industrial Revolution, when craftsmen destroyed machines.

The robot, in turn, is an expensive machine, both for producers and for companies or individuals who want to buy it.

Enchanted Tools says its robot costs around €35,000 ($39,000) while Neubility says it wants to bring the cost of its machine down to $5,000 (R$24,228) per unit. .

The problem is that Neubility’s delivery robot, which wants to start working with the 7-Eleven sales chains in South Korea, cannot climb the stairs.

However, “the cost of delivery is so low that people are now willing to go downstairs to get their shopping basket” with the machines, says Kim.