What’s in a Body? Do Social Robots Need a Physical Presence?
The term “social robot” generally makes people think of a physical robot, often a humanoid. But as more conversational devices and assistants enter the marketplace, it’s interesting to speculate about how much of a physical presence a social companion robot, or bot, needs.
In his recent post on the rise of social robots, Mark Stephen Meadows expresses the opinion that physical bodies aren’t that important when it comes to social interaction. But he emphasizes that social bots do need to be adept at interacting socially.
Degrees of Physical Presence
Today’s social robots and conversational virtual personal assistants have varying degrees of “embodiment,” or physical presence. The four levels might be described as::
- Bodiless: no physical presence at all
- Ghostly: inhabitant of another physical object
- Avatar: virtual human within a Virtual Reality environment
- Robot: convincing physical persona, often humanoid
Those Without Bodies
We’re accustomed to virtual assistants that don’t have a physical presence. We’ve been using Siri and Google Now for half a decade. Though we generally access these assistants from our smartphones, we don’t think of them as “inhabiting” the phone. We know they’re software programs located somewhere in the cloud.
There are advantages to a bodiless virtual assistant. You don’t have to worry about how to take it with you when leaving the house or the office. You can’t be annoyed by the way it’s looking at you.
But are we able to build a relationship with an immaterial assistant? The protagonist in the movie Her didn’t let his virtual assistant Samantha’s lack of a physical presence dampen his love. Siri and Microsoft’s Xiaoice reportedly get marriage proposals all the time. What these assistants lack in physical accoutrements, they make up for in the various ways they display personality.
But voice and text only offer so many opportunities to show personality and empathy and interact socially. It remains to be seen whether bodiless assistants will be at a disadvantage once assistants with a physical presence become more prevalent.
The Ghosts: Inhabitants of Basic Physical Objects
Amazon’s Alexa is the prime example of a virtual assistant that resides inside a physical object. The Echo is a sleek cylinder that doesn’t resemble anything in particular, but could possibly pass for a piece of modern art that just happens to have a speaker and microphones built into it.
Alexa obviously inhabits the Echo device. Her presence is emphasized by the blue ring at the top of the Echo cylinder that illuminates whenever Alexa is active. Does the fact that you need to approach a physical object when you want to talk to Alexa, or at least be aware of the location of the device, make us feel Alexa is more real? Does the presence of the illuminated blue ring give us the sense that Alexa is with us?
As an Echo user, I do have the sense that Alexa is somewhat more “real” than Siri, just based on the fact that Alexa is represented by the Echo. Is that part of Alexa’s attraction for her users? It’s certainly not clear.
Other companies are following suit and planning the development of “ghostly” assistants. Google’s Home and the open source assistant Mycroft are examples. And now with the availability of the Alexa Voice Service, Alexa will be able to inhabit other hardware objects beyond the Echo.
Avatar, Virtual Human, or Other Creature Within VR
We’re accustomed to virtual humans inside of video games. Virtual humans and other types of virtual creatures will reside in the virtual worlds that we’ll all soon be exploring through VR headgear.
These VR avatars might be designed to entertain us, coach us, analyze our health, or offer any number of services. Will we prefer interacting with an avatar version of Siri, Alexa, or any other popular virtual assistant in VR over simply talking to a microphone?
If the avatar responds to our emotional cues in a way that we recognize, using body language that puts us at ease or corresponds to what we’re feeling, I would think we’d prefer the avatar. But that might not be the case.
Physical Robots In All Shapes and Sizes
Softbank’s Pepper, Jibo, Blue Frog Robotics’ Buddy, and Samsung’s Kenbo are all examples of social robots that have a convincing, individualized physical persona. Though none of these robots look exactly the same, they’re all obviously designed to generate an anthropomorphic response.
Pepper is for sale in Japan, while Buddy, Jibo and Kenbo are still in production. Pepper is the most humanoid of all the devices. Jibo, Buddy, and Kenbo are more reminiscent of cute extraterrestrial children or cuddly, big eyed pets.
At first glance, it does seem that embodied robots have the upper hand in winning our affections if they’re meant to act as companions. It’s hard not to feel empathy and even a sense of fondness for something that looks like a lovable alien child. But based on the tragic end of hitchBOT, it seems that not all humans are bound to love all robots. Maybe hitchBOT wasn’t cuddly enough?
The Bottom Line on Bodies
The bottom line is that we don’t yet have enough experience to predict whether having a body matters or not for a social “companion” bot. What we do know is that these bots, physically present or not, have to be good at social interaction.
As Mark Stephen Meadows writes:
“In the end, a smile isn’t important because it’s a mouth. It’s important because it transmits social data.”
