Cute, Cold, Plastic Hugs

The purpose of the Darpa Robotics Challenge wasn't just to make cool robots that could complete dangerous tasks. The DRC was also an opportunity for robotic experts to engage with the community at large. There were an amazing number of interactive booths and exhibits with the express purpose of getting kids interested in science and engineering. It was great to see the looks on their faces when they realized that, yes, they were allowed to touch some of the robots- and that they could even learn how to build and program them. My favorite part of the DRC expo, though, would have to be meeting Pepper the robot. One of the things I found fascinating about Pepper was that I immediately assigned a gender to her- er, I mean, it, to the point where I found myself a little miffed when CNN and the BBC both referred to it as a male. According to Aldebaran, the company that manufactures Pepper, this is actually a very common occurrence. People tend to assign Pepper a different gender based on where they're from. All of this points to some very interesting psychology behind us, as a people, and how we interact with robots. Aldebaran plans to market Pepper as a companion robot- and, in fact, she sold out within the first 24 hours she was on sale in Japan. They have big plans to release Pepper to the Western market as well. It will be fascinating to see how American and European users interact with and utilize Pepper compared to Japanese users. To my mind, Japan is more comfortable with the idea of companion robots. The Japanese language is also easier to synthesize (hence, the success of Vocaloids and similar synthetic pop stars in Japan). American pop culture, by contrast, doesn't seem to have the idea of companion robots as deeply ingrained in its consciousness. Even famous robots in Western media generally serve a purpose- for example, Rosie from the Jetsons is a maid, and R2D2 is an astromechanic droid. I'm curious to see if Pepper will sell out as quickly in the US as she did in Japan.