Talking With Machines

So, this adorable video has been making the rounds on the interwebs:

Rayna meets a “robot”.

If you haven’t seen it already, watch it now. You won’t regret it. Not only does Rayna see a robot where there’s just a broken water heater, but she also instinctively tries to talk with, wave at, and even hug her new friend!

Moments like this offer a window into the world in which Rayna and the rest of her generation are growing up, surrounded by intelligent agents and things that can talk, hear, see, and more. What on the surface seems like a toddler’s fantastic imagination may actually hint at an emerging reality.

@scribblemethis dropping knowledge

Clicking, Browsing, Tapping

New technologies and interfaces have a profound impact across generations. This is perhaps most visible in children who grow up knowing nothing else, setting an entirely new baseline of experiences, expectations, and norms.

Every now and then the next generation’s point of view surfaces in the hazy transition between old and new paradigms. Those of us who are old enough almost certainly have observed, if not experienced, this first-hand before.

I grew up pointing and clicking on PCs, in a world where computers fit on desks and applications used graphical interfaces. My Rayna moment was trying to use a mouse to navigate a commandline terminal.

My little brother grew up browsing and networking over the Internet, in a world where information and people were readily accessible from any computer. His Rayna moment was trying to access websites on an offline PC.

My nephew grew up tapping and swiping on smartphones, in a world where computers fit in pockets and screens are multitouch. His Rayna moment was trying to swipe digital displays on exhibits at the museum.

Talking, Gesturing, Hugging

Now, the “kids these days” are growing up talking and gesturing (and cuddling!) with machines, in a world where computers that live everywhere can talk, hear, see, etc. Rayna’s moment is revealing on a few levels:

• Perception: First, she perceives a broken water heater dumped on the side of the road to be a non-hostile, embodied agent/robot
• Interaction: Then, she initiates contact with a verbal greeting (“hi wubot”), waits for a response, and adds a wave to get its attention
• Affection: After waiting again, to no response, she does what only a toddler could…hug the robot and let it know she “wuvs” it

These innate attitudes and behaviors may seem extraordinary to us “olds” but will become quite ordinary for future generations, creating the conditions for new and unexpected products and categories to emerge. Here’s just a sampling of what people will be growing up around, across ages (toddlers, teens, adults, seniors) and domains (entertainment, education, productivity, health, transportation, etc.):

Smart Toys e.g. talking dinos, Wonder’s coding robots, hologram Barbie:

A Toy Dinosaur Powered by IBM’s Watson Supercomputer_Don Coolidge and JP Benini are bringing cognitive smarts to the world of children’s toys. Coolidge and Benini just…_www.wired.com

Can programmable robots Dot and Dash teach your kids to code?_My cat is pretty unflappable, given that she shares a house with four children. But when a three-wheeled robot trundles…_www.theguardian.com

Barbie Wants to Get to Know Your Child_It looked like a child's playroom: toys in cubbies, a little desk for doing homework, a whimsical painting of a tree on…_www.nytimes.com

Barbie Is Back. This Time, She's a Voice-Controlled Hologram_Mattel introduced its first Barbie doll way back in 1959, and she's found herself at the center of cultural controversy…_www.wired.com

Voice Assistants e.g. Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant:

How One Boy With Autism Became BFF With Apple’s Siri_I happened to be doing this when Gus was nearby. “Why would anyone need to know what planes are flying above your head…_www.nytimes.com

Parents are worried the Amazon Echo is conditioning their kids to be rude_Alexa will put up with just about anything. She has a remarkable tolerance for annoying behavior, and she certainly…_qz.com

Mattel Is Building An Alexa For Kids_“What do you want to ask Google?” my wife asked our toddler after installing Google Home. “Everything,” he responded in…_www.fastcodesign.com

How millions of kids are being shaped by know-it-all voice assistants_Kids adore their new robot siblings. As millions of American families buy robotic voice assistants to turn off lights…_www.washingtonpost.com

Conversational Chatbots e.g. Xiaoice, Replika, Hugging Face:

Your Next New Best Friend Might Be a Robot — Issue 33: Attraction — Nautilus_One night in late July 2014, a journalist from the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly interviewed a 17-year-old Chinese…_nautil.us

When her best friend died, she used artificial intelligence to keep talking to him_When the engineers had at last finished their work, Eugenia Kuyda opened a console on her laptop and began to type.…_www.theverge.com

Hugging Face wants to become your artificial BFF_Meet Hugging Face, a new chatbot app for bored teenagers. The New York-based startup is creating a fun and emotional…_techcrunch.com

Social Robots e.g. Jibo, Pepper, Mira:

This Friendly Robot Could One Day Be Your Family’s Personal Assistant_For many families, the tablet has become the central, shared computing device in the home. It’s a hub for learning, for…_www.wired.com

Man seeking robot: One inventor’s quest to cure loneliness_Kaname Hayashi has found a new obsession. Hayashi is the “father of Pepper,” the charming humanoid robot from Japanese…_www.cnet.com

Volkswagen reveals its bizarre self-driving electric car Sedric_Sedric is run by artificial intelligence and can be controlled with a button, voice control or a phone app The self…_www.dailymail.co.uk

This Pixar Artist’s Homemade Robot Is Adorable And I Want One_You’ve probably seen lots of robots here on TechCrunch. You’ve seen Atlas, the robot that can walk just like a human…_techcrunch.com

Child’s Play

Children have always indulged in play and used their imagination to interact with things that aren’t “alive”. Consider: Betsy Wetsy, Teddy Ruxpin, Tickle Me Elmo, Furby, or even just good old-fashioned toys and invisible friends.

But now Rayna and her generation are growing up in a world where their instincts extend far beyond play toys to machines responsible for myriad aspects of their day-to-day lives. Machines that live everywhere, interact with them in kind, and evolve with them over their lifetime.

For the first time people may start to grow “with” rather than “out of” their childhood imaginations, and more meaningfully engage the world for it.