Living With Robots, Walking Like Humans

On January 22, Honda screened a documentary, Living with Robots, at the Sundance Film Festival. The short film—which is as much infomercial as it it documentary—features Asimo, the company’s walking humanoid robot.

The goal of Asimo is to create a bipedal humanoid robot that can be helpful in a person’s home. After decades of researching and attempting to mimic how humans walk, Asimo has achieved toddler status and a top speed of almost 4 mph. The current results are enough to inspire improvements in Honda’s traditional areas of business (for example, anti-lock brakes have improved) and create a WOW factor for anyone who gets to see this line of robots in action.

Directed by Joe Berlinger (Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster) and produced @radical.media, Living With Robots includes interviews with the Honda employees responsible for evolving Asimo from a pair of mechanical legs to an amazing bipedal creature about the height of a child. The chats also include other scientists, philosophers, and writers. Some of the highlights include:

• “People and machines need a trusting relationship, just like the trust between people.”
  Jun Ashihara, Honda
• “In educating people about robots, one thing we notice … if it moves, you think it’s alive. And many people think robots are simply creepy.”
  Robin Murphy, CRASAR
• “I don’t think robots can coexist with people if you can’t overcome that issue [with being creepy].”
  Yasuhisa Arai, Honda
• “Some people obviously have some preconceptions about robots, maybe from what they’ve seen in movies or whatnot. I think over time, as people become familiar with technology in all areas of their life, they are going to come to understand what kind of benefits this technology can provide people.”
  David Iida, Honda
• “It’s kind of like a mirror we hold up to ourselves. Whatever robots turn out to be will largely be a function of the decisions we make.”
  Mark Rowlands, University of Miami

The pattern here is the relationship between humans and robots, and how appearance and experience play a role.

The opening interview in the film talks about how nearly all robots were developed as tools to extend human faculties. Robots like Asimo, however, may be service-oriented, but they are not pictured by their creators as “tools.” One of the early insights that arose from Japanese robotics came from scientist Masahiro Mori when he realized that there is a danger spot between human-like and human where the creep factor lives. Mori proposed the Uncanny Valley as a way of suggesting that humans feel more and more comfortable with a robot as it begins to resemble a person, but once it gets too close, there is a significant drop-off in comfort level.

Asimo’s design recognizes this by incorporating a space helmet-shaped design for a head—shielding any specific facial features—and downsizing the robot to be a less intimidating height. These choices were made to help Asimo to the top of the first peak of acceptance without dipping into the valley of creepiness.

What intrigues me most about Asimo is the mix of a technology-centrist process and the spiritual Eastern philosophy driving the project. Asimo clearly looks like a response to the question, “Can we make a machine walk like a man?” with all the assumptions about why that might be a good thing, but it also follows the Karakuri tradition comes from a tradition that imbues all things with spirit. In that sense, the robot is built as a technology but draws from its own kind of humanity.

Edit: I completely messed up my understanding of Karakuri tradition. I was probably looking for something more like Shinto.