Will our fear of robots hold us back?

Danger, Danger Will Robinson. My generation was first exposed to scary robots watching Lost in Space. While the real villain was Dr Smith, most of our primary school were frightened stiff of the robot with flaying arms.
Fast forward to 2017 and many are now writing of the imminent challenges that artificial intelligence could provide to our continued domination of the planet, if not our very existence. A recent example was the audacity of an A.I. engine at Facebook to invent a new language that we could not understand, which was labelled as ‘creepy’ by media.
Forward thinkers however would consider that we should explore a language that is a new design rather than our continuing use of words anchored to ancient times. I wonder what L.L Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, would make of Facebook’s decision as perhaps they had made a bigger discovery than first realised.
Don’t let your designers get shouted down
We are in the early stages of human:robot interaction and many humans are frightened of what this may mean. If companies are going to take their customers on the journey to greater automation, the role of the designer and CX will be key in making this a positive interaction and the considered role that emotions will need to play. Leaders will need to ensure that their ‘tech’ enthusiasm does not overshadow good CX and design.
This week in Sydney airport we have seen Air New Zealand and Commonwealth Bank team up to provide a week long exploration of the role robots may play in travel experience with the ‘CANdroid social humanoid robot’.
Such initiatives are to be applauded, however I find this robot sinister in appearance, not helped by needing to show my boarding pass to its eyes to register. It may just be a moving, talking version of a travel kiosk but how much better would this be if the robot looked likeable? It left me thinking about the question of: what would Disney have done?
Google Home — Good or Evil?
At the other end of the robot spectrum we have devices triggered by speech. Google certainly have let the designers voice come through with Google Home. How could such a helpful and pleasantly designed little device be anything but good? Perhaps all it is missing is a smiley face on top.
Sure it may be listening in to our conversations, and we know that the data is being stored, but those design and CX aesthetics help overcome any fears that I may have. And having a two sons, any data stored by Google related to our household is going to be biased heavily towards fart, yo momma and other ten-year-old wisdoms so my own private information will be adequately buried under that.
What are we scared of?
As we head down the path towards greater robotisation, will fear hold us back? Most companies are not in imminent danger of accidentally creating Skynet.
So for the next few years, let’s concentrate on making this transformation a positive emotional experience by being led not by the technology, but by excellent Design and CX.
