Creating a social robot is a social challenge.
- A day in the life of a Baby developer -
Now I am back in Japan and moved Doki Doki Japan’s headquarters to Kyoto, the city of ancient history. This city’s amazing beauty can be found in numerous world heritage sites, streets, people and even in the air we breathe. The ineffable serenity emanates from every corner of this thousand-old city, and people have long striven to preserve such a great environment. It is pleasantly and completely different from megalopolis like Tokyo or New York City, where I used to call home.
What strikes one the most when visiting Kyoto, among other obvious things such as insane number of several centuries old temples and shrines, is the lack of skyscrapers. The city has a landscape policy and it places upper limit on buildings in certain areas of the city. This was meant to preserve Kyoto’s natural views and landscape, and prevent it from becoming just about any other modern urban cities.
I have walked around this city quite a bit this past week, and I have noticed that living here is undeniably inconvenient compared to living in say, city like Tokyo; there are Konbini (convenient stores,) but there isn’t one in every single block; not every cab driver owns a car navigation; stores close and almost all neighborhoods quiets down (with a few exception like Gion, of course) after 10pm; things are different and I am pleasantly surprised and happy to have been given the opportunity to enjoy this humane lifestyle.
Come to think of it, why do we have to have stores run 24 hours, every single day? Why do we need 20-story buildings on every block in the shopping area so that everyone’s desire for a shopping spree be satisfied? These things are considered to be a “function” of a modern city, and almost all major cities’ downtown areas are expected to have such functions. But seriously, do we need them and moreover, are they doing us any good?
I have lived in metropolitan area (New York and Tokyo) over 10 years and I was blissfully unaware of city like Kyoto exists; blissful because I did not know nature and city does not have to be mutually exclusive, and it was possible to live in a city with both elements had I known about this great ancient city; blissful because if I had known, I would have chosen beauty over functionality, at any given moment.
What motivated me to write this post was the a realization that what we are up against is akin to what Kyoto is up against—things we modern city dwellers have taken for granted, and things that modern humans have taken for granted — overcoming our urge to place a highest importance on rationality and functionality, and preserve our innate need to enjoy seemingly “useless” things and moments.
We can’t deny this: we modern humans have fallen in love with the concept of rationality and hence placing a highest value on things that serve certain functions. Without clear “purpose” and “function” in writing, we feel uneasy. We need to have a life goal, we need to have a career goal (in 5 year, 10 year and 20 year time frame, too) and we need to have so-called “rationale” whenever initiating something, and everything we touch upon has to have functions. This is what modernity represents, and everything that surrounds us is infected with this.
Just like Kyoto did not give in to functionality, our Baby won’t give into mere functionality. It is easy to surrender the urge to add “functions” — functions that are supposed to serve us — to social robot, and just let them be there to help us. However, just like Taka-san said in his latest post, our sociable, humane robot will have potential of shaping human behaviors, not the other way around. We want to have Baby around with us not because it serves us a certain function, but it is fun to be around. We won’t ask Baby to be a perfect schedule keeper, nor a vacuum cleaner :) . We are not born to satisfy someone else’s needs, but we are here to enjoy and cherish what life has to offer. Along the way, we may satisfy others’ needs, but that is just a byproduct. Just fulfilling human needs? That’s not how we are supposed to live our lives, and that should not be how social robots are supposed to live their lives.
“Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.”
― Michael Ende, Momo
This is a challenge — a social challenge — against everything that we have deemed as the modern way to live. If a city can go against its urge to make everything about convenience, so can we.
Alas, making everything about challenge and competition, in fact, is another modern sickness that I personally need to get over, I guess:P
Stay well, everyone!
XOXO
Yuki
