Will Social Robots Take Over the Smartphone Era?

A social robot is an autonomous robot which interacts and communicates with humans. In difference to industrial robots, a social robot is made for serving us in our private life. Definitely it is within a consumer product category. However, there are also professional service robots which are in their design very close to social robots. Often they will be used as interactive information deck with a big screen embedded within their body. The application of professional service robots will be rather in hotels, exhibitions, air ports and other places where customers need to be served.

Rocky Robots Deskbot — Your Personal Life-Coach at All Times

A social robot is physically embodied in an avatar. Some are designed with a screen to represent the head or face, some others take rather a humanoid look. Some social robots move on wheels or have even legs and can walk. To be considered as robot, at least some physical motors and sensor abilities must be integrated.

We have developed the social robot — “Rocky Robots Deskbot” https://www.rockyrobots.com/deskbot

The most important feature set of a social robot is related to its interaction abilities with human by being able to talk, to see and to hear while also being connected to internet services and using artificial intelligence. To bring this ability in context a new set of applications and skills will be developed over the next years.

Some standard examples of these skills is to ask the robot about the weather, to read news, to take a picture of the family. I am sure you saw also some Youtube videos in which you can see a robot being remote controlled or starting to dance.

These application examples are rather boring, and the user will lose the interest after a few days.

However, many new applications will come up in the next years and these will go with new skills and hardware performance of the future social robots.

For us at Rocky Robots this is the most important aspect in our product and software design, as we focus on the applications which are relevant every day for the consumer and bring sustainable value and joyful experiences.

This goes also hand in hand with our vision that we believe that robots will be helpful to maximize human potential and will enable the change of societies in the interest of everyone.

An example is our “Motivational Robot” Solution: https://www.rockyrobots.com/motivational-robot

Social robots have a big advantage as they are often embedded in nice looking avatars which have a sense of personality. They can also show emotions as for example rolling eyes, cute expressions, angry quick movements or simply nod with their head.

Thanks to the integrated motors and sensors, the kinematic of the robots allows them to dynamically change their situation. This enables independent movements of the robot. A robot can for example follow a person. To do this it is necessary to continuously change the alignment of the camera or other sensors and track the target. With this real-time sensor data actions can be defined as for example walking to the left side or to look over to the right side.

Depending on the context of the dialogue it is now possible to add another layer: Emotions.

The angry or the cute face expressions allow to bring more context into the expression. And we as users react with more senses and can intuitively better take the relevance of a message. This can bring also a lot of fun as it is still new that machines show emotions.

Rocky Robots Deskbot — Prototype 1

Many applications are already invented and in the market. In most cases the medium to use them is the smartphone. So you might ask, why you would need a personal robot instead, as you already have your applications running on your phone.

Yes, however, there are significant differences in the experience of interacting.

Firstly, a smartphone, a laptop or a speaker have limited personality. They are “just” a device, they have no face and you simply replace them with a newer better device. This is not the foundation for a dialogue or any kind of a relationship. I also never encountered people who collect older smartphones and put them into their living rooms to show proudly their collection to the friends.

As described before a social robot has motors and can dynamically react to the environment. By moving the camera to the place of action the robot is able to bring up content autonomously. Think of all the video phone calls with your smartphone you are doing with you family. You have to hold the phone and put yourself into the screen. Very often I place the phone onto the table and adjust the alignment in a way that I am in the frame. But now I cannot move anymore.

The other aspect with the emotions is clear, a phone cannot show you a happy, cute or angry expression due to its practical shape.

One thing I always turn off in my smartphone are the alerts. I have so many apps installed and every app has some kind of pop-ups and alerts. Every time a new message sound or vibration comes up I have the urge to take my phone and check it up. Mostly I realize that the message was not that important and that I was just distracted from my recent activity.

I see the value of a robot coming up to me proactively by a voiced-based request which is supported by its emotional expression. And as I would react to the people around me, I could say: “Yes, tell me” or “Wait a moment, I am busy”.

Everybody of us is spending too much time in front of a TV, computer or the smartphone screen.

It is the last thing we do before we fall asleep and often the first thing we do when we wake up.

WE HAVE TO STOP THIS!

Why Social Robots — Introduction

Yes, it is a matter of our generation, but I truly do not want to waste my lifetime with reading something from a screen or putting a text into a device. The time that we interact with machines as we would do with humans, by speaking, seeing and listening has come.

Too learn more about us and our products, please visit: https://www.rockyrobots.com

Harry Novic

Originally published at blog.goodaudience.com on June 13, 2018.