 So happy new year and welcome to the first event in the JSC lecture series for 2022. My name is Fabio Gigi. I'm the chair of the Japan Research Center here at SOAS. And with me are Professor Naonori Kodate from the University College Dublin and Professor David Prendegast from Maynooth University both in Ireland. The title of today's event is Can Robotics Aided Care Be Person Centred? And it will be a talk followed by the screening of the film by Professor Prendegast called Circuits of Care. So for the format today we decided to have a brief introductory talk by Professor Kodate beforehand because he is in Japan so you can calculate the time difference. It's now about two o'clock in the morning. So we are very thankful for him to join us. We'll start off with that and then David Prendegast will introduce the film. We'll take a few questions at the beginning and then we'll return to watch the film together and we'll take some more questions at the end. Please feel free to use the chat for questions but you also will be able to unmute and to speak up if you raise your hands. We also have the Q the question and answer function that you can use for that purpose. Okay, without further ado I'll introduce our first speaker, Professor Naonori Kodate, who is a social professor in social policy and social robotics at University College Dublin and he's the founding director of the UCD Centre for Japanese Studies which is in a sense our new collaboration partner and I'm really happy that you are here and to extend because we're both interested in very similar topics here. He has done extensive research in eHealthcare in the STM and he has written about robotics aided care systems working with teams in Ireland, in Japan, Hong Kong and in France. So I hand over to you for the first introductory note. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Fabio sensei and welcome everybody and happy new year and so I'm delighted to be part of this session with David, Professor Brenda Gust and I'll be, I try to be quick because I'm sure everybody joins and this session for the film and so let me just share my slides. I just wanted to give you some context to this film and also talk a little bit about a few projects that are related to today's talk. So if I can make it work. So the starting point for me as a researcher because I trained, I'm a political scientist by training and then got retrained as a kind of applied social scientist and working in the field of safety and patient safety to start with and that brought me into another area completely but loosely related to safety as well. So my angle to this and the whole subject is actually coming from safety science and 2016 and the team of researchers in Chiba University and my team in UCD University College Dublin and tried to get EU funding and probably a lot of people in the audience sympathetic to the fact that we are trying to get funding to make our project work and so then since then we had had several seminars all robotics related seminars and this is way before the pandemic so we always had some visitors speakers and flying from flying from from Japan and then in 2018 and we managed to get funding from Toyota Foundation and that is the project which is thankfully I got to meet Davis and then we made the film. So the project is entitled harmonization towards the establishment of personal centers robotics AD care system we call it HAAP, HAAP ROCKS and then the researchers based in four jurisdictions Island, Japan, Hong Kong and France which Fabio Sensei already mentioned and they are all coming from different disciplines so from medicine, nursing, engineering and to social work, sociology anthropology and so on and like people like myself and social policy and I think for most of you probably this is redundant and everybody knows Japan is a very rapidly aging society and some of the key aspects is really about the this skewed demographic and so it's getting worse and worse and it's the pace is actually picking up so the baby boomer the second baby boomer will become an older person and by 2040 and 2050 and by 2060 or probably more than 40 percent of the whole entire population will be 60 those 65 years old and older and that's the background demographic aspect but that doesn't necessarily mean we need to have robotics AD care but Japan and South Korea in particular in East Asia had a very regulated institutional care setting and so care care has been on one hand care has been a core public policy model and long-term care insurance system and that were introduced in both countries basically made social care as a kind of potential engine for of economic activation both in other parts of Asia Asian countries it's much more liberal private market-driven scheme so and it's strictly private family responsibility and active use of migrant care labor within private home and that is a dominant form and then what happens in Japan with the combination of rapidly aging population and then the lack of the shortage of care workers coming from overseas is the shortage of care professional stuff so 380 this is based on the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare data now it's becoming a bit old 2016 but they estimated 380 000 people in in short in terms of professional workforce and then the government had a strategy and so in a sense it's all sort of a old Japan approach to this the shortage of care workers and then there are three types of care robots in Japan the definition of robots is sort of broader than other countries but it normally includes these three types so physical support support type and then independent support type to basically assist and aging in place and then the third one is more social and assistive robots and which includes communication and safety monitoring and so on and now they are supported by government funding and so that's the incentive for bringing in technologies and you will see in the film a particular nursing home where technologies are used not just robots but the monitoring system and so on so basically the idea is not to replace human care workers but to supplement or sort of enhance the quality of care so it's all connected to communication robots you know being connected up with the safety monitoring system and they if something untoward happens so basically falls during the night shift then they have this silhouette sort of a type and video and screen to actually learn what actually happened and so they use it as a support mechanism for care stuff so it's it is fundamentally for and supporting older people but also supporting care workers and the findings so far like in terms of the use of care robots it actually enhances quality of life for both older adults and care stuff and some of the socially assisted robots communication robots can be effective too for older adults with moderate dementia and as I showed monitoring devices and useful nighttime care and can provide an effective tool in reducing the burden on care professionals and so on so there's there's a lot of lot more to be done in terms of research and the how effective how efficient these tools are but we already know some of the advantages and but also some of the issues as well some of the challenges in the use of care robots and this is just an example the table and with illustrative courts and positive aspects of using communication robots and this is the this is based on the interviews with care and professionals so not from with older persons themselves but they report some of the negative aspects so frightening appearance and so those older the current generation of older people in Japan have never grown up using robots or and they are not necessarily even keen on some anime as well so either so they for them robots are frightening and some of the flashing eyes and so on so there are certain types of robots that frighten them and also the functionality and the capacity is still quite limited in terms of having common striking conversations and then waking up for instance night so they're supposed to support their sleep but some sort of they are very sensitive to the noise and the and the movement and then sometimes they wake them up for the people up and so on so based on these commercially available robots and that are used in this nursing home and they try to improve so they they try to create original robots that are better so like more plus toy type and soft robot and closer to older persons so that they don't have any issues with the hearing and communication and so the balance between personalization and the common scenario based and communication conversations built into the system so but this they are trying to create and better robots and better environment and so that the technologies and the use of technologies can be also can improve and where I am based normally based and robots are also coming in so in islands and people and researchers are developing different kinds of robots but mainly this type of humanoid humanoid robot just few minutes before I pass on to David and just another study which we did together with colleagues in islands I mean Japan at Chiba University and Seina Yoki applied science university of applied science and basically you wanted to understand and three types of use potential users of home care robots so older people family carers and then care professionals and we did a survey questionnaire in those three countries they are all out and sort of published already so you can have a look if you're interested but I just want to go through very quickly and just results focusing on then other people's response in three countries so first of all familiarity with robots and there's not much surprise there in terms of Japanese people are the most sort of a familiar with robots so they have seen news about robots and so on and then interest in news about robots and I'm not sure whether you're surprised or not surprised but Irish people and Japanese people are interested and then in terms of negative impression of robots and much greater proportion of the respondents in Finland said they have very negative impression and then willingness to use home care robots again it's a reflection of this negative positive impression but again surprisingly a lot of Irish people are interested in using home care robots for themselves and also the family members and then capacity I mean this view viewpoints in regard to home care robots so what do they actually value and so from the long list convenience entertainment value economic efficiency safety and so on just to highlight this capacity to increase mental and physical well-being and comfort so this is where users perspectives multiple types of users perspective is important so other persons perspective but also care professionals perspective and then guarantee of entitlement to receiving human care using robots in care settings to still very controversial and if we bring in more and more technologies in there a lot of people believe and we should have some kind of guarantee to of and to receiving human care and then in terms of decision so who makes the decision and whether they would like to use home care robots or not and based on what and there are some interesting results in terms of the users themselves or the family carers and all care professionals so there are multiple dimensions to this issue of the use of care robots and then in terms of the access to data which the film is going to touch on a little bit there and then functions expected of home care robots and conversation and social companionship and so on and that's the highest in Japan lowest in Finland and then that's where I would like to stop and I spent nearly 20 minutes and so if you have any questions and just sort of burning questions and if it's relevant to this and part of the talk please ask me or writing through the chat box and if not there is a question I think there is just a question came through by Ai Fukunaga there is an assumption that if reducing the burden for care workers and promoting IT industry personal information of elderly people are okay to send to be analyzed without the permission which is happening to my family member in a private nursing home what do you think of the ownership of personal data do I think of the ownership of personal data I mean there are so many there's so much so many issues around the ethics and the use of data and privacy dignity and so on so I mean I'm surprised to hear the use of data personal information has been used yeah I mean it's if you agree and then to our extent like it's the use of data and the secondary use of data and so on so like again it's the kind of a multiple layers in this question about the use of information and so I guess I would say obviously it should and reside with the person themselves but if you get an approval would that make them and you know make that okay and use the use it for secondary purpose and so on like you know there's a huge issue with that I think there's another question yeah there is there's also a question in chat by Ming Chihou who asked what would you think leads to the different perspective in the tri-country comparison where Finland is sort of consistently rating low with an Ireland and Japan I thought that was quite interesting as well yes let me see what do I think these two yeah and what's what I would say is it's very hard to know what causes I mean creates these differences and particularly when we don't know the individual familiarity with the robot so a lot of interest coming in Ireland found in Ireland is the kind of reflection of the cash shortage in Ireland and then the the resources issue but also because they haven't seen it I think more Finnish people have seen robots and actually being used than Irish people so there is a bit of expectation this is where I think where David's film and interest and original interest in the film making a film and comes in like a lot of Japanese people have used it therefore they are interested or they are they you know they know how to live with robots and in the kind of the in the Irish case people have never seen it or people have higher expectation and that would have created so I guess and depending on the and respondents and the time this is quick you know snapshot of question it is a questionnaire and cross-sectional questionnaire so it's hard to say exactly why this this has been the case thank you so there's one more question by Jenny Schofield have any of your studies so far looked at the applications of robotics as accessibility technology for disabled people I would be interested to discuss further with you yeah and thank you very much Jenny I haven't they and the quick answer is we have been focused and very much and concentrating on older people at the moment but but there's an in the team and there is there is persons and researchers who have done it and who have been looking at assistive technologies broader than robots and for and for the use and for disabled people so we are interested from that perspective and sort of assistive technologies so the broader than robots but also broader sort of a user categories and so it'd be great to speak with you at some stage thank you very much all right thank you for your questions there will be more occasion to ask questions after the film but I would like to introduce now the second speaker professor David Prendergast who's a social anthropologist and professor of science technology and society at Maynuth University in Ireland and he as well has worked on a broad range of topics related to technology and healthcare and his book Aging and the Digital Life Course was named a choice outstanding academic title by the American Library Association so I'll hand over to you thank you thank you very much I'm just looking at the comments there was a comment by Ergon Lyon that there's a chance that old people develop feelings for robots and I think that's a quite an astute comment so it's something that is addressed in the film so I look forward to seeing what you think Ergon right so thank you very much everybody for your interest in my documentary Circus of Care Aging in Japan's Robot Revolution now in 2015 as many of you will know the Japanese government announced the launch of a robot revolution a huge multi-sector collaborative endeavor developing artificial intelligence robotics the Internet of Things and other advanced technologies in industries now as often happens whilst much of the investment in development was on advanced industrial systems a great deal of the narrative pointed towards future value for Japan's aged and aging population my own research is focused on independent living and aging in place I have done some of this work in South Korea you know but most of my work has been in Europe in the last decade or two but I've been very interested so when hearing about the robot revolution and also kind of other technology claims I work for Intel for many years as well so I've been long interested in understanding what is working and what is hyperbole and the first idea for this documentary arose when I was giving a talk on ethnography and design as part of an event organized by Nannori at University College Dublin and I was there I learned about the heart rocks program I was watching various videos that were that were being shown during that event short clips etc and I remember being very curious about whether the bedside guardian robots that we're seeing in nursing homes have many false alarms of people getting out of bed and if staff and residents were getting frustrated with this now a wonderful opportunity for me arose in late 2019 when I was offered the chance to speak at the the future technologies for integrated care annual conference in Tokyo this is a gathering of many of the leading researchers developers practitioners in this domain in Japan and it struck me that it offered a fantastic opportunity as an anthropologist and filmmaker to get access to their thoughts and research it also provided me with a brief window of time to visit researchers developing and testing assistive technologies for older adults and these range from cybernetic walking supports and companion robots to automated center networks in nursing homes so together with Nannori a tiny cobble together research budget my filmmaking partner Daniel Bealtinou and my 16 year old son Harry we set out to learn what we could and we were humbled at how people open their doors to their labs test beds companies nursing facilities and homes to share their experiences using robots and other AI related technologies in the care of old adults and their networks the bulk of this filmmaking took place just weeks before the pandemic struck though we did revisit the nursing home a year later to see how these online to see how these technologies are being used to help in their fight against COVID-19 it is designed to provide an overview this film of some of the technologies being developed in Japan during this film older adults and care professionals share their experiences of the practical benefits these technologies bring the problems they create and the unexpected relationships that can blossom I hope you find this short documentary interesting and thought provoking and I do think it creates more questions than it answers and in this I judge it to be successful because we need to take very seriously what why and how we will design and integrate artificial intelligence into our working lives should we both now and into the future I hope you enjoy Circus of Care I'm going to shut up now until the Q&A perhaps we could watch the film thank you very much for this fascinating screening I'm sure there's lots of questions I can see some of them already coming in but just for those who are still thinking please put your questions either into the chat into the Q&A box or you can also raise your hand if you want and we shall unmute you so I was I was really struck after the talk by Kodate sense at the beginning I was thinking about the concept of safety and there's a wonderful this moment where the professor of law says well I have a four-year-old you know granddaughter and she's very dangerous very cute and dangerous and so the question is what actually are the humans the danger or are the robots the danger and how are these two things mediated so I think that it's really connected to the question of when we talk about robots in a western context usually people assume that there is some kind of autonomous system at work well what we really have in the many examples that we've seen in the wonderful documentary is that we can it's probably more accurate to speak of machines that mediate human contact in some way or another so they they they're not meant to act autonomously and I was wondering in your own research and the question to both of you how did this the concept of the robot how did you deal with that because clearly there's many different understandings at work yeah thank you yeah that's a lot in that question actually uh yeah I mean for me kind of um it was it was fascinating just to try and understand what people thought were robots um you know I mean you know as and then you know how people reacted with them I mean it kind of goes back to Egon's question earlier you know I'll kind of point earlier about the the social relationships that build around robots and how people feel they can interact etc uh what kind of are they suspending disbelief or you know those are the types of kind of anthropological kind of questions I suppose I had going in there and I kind of did approach it you know quite sceptically in many ways you know I kind of hadn't uh anticipated that I would get the you know that I would be witnessing the level of interaction that I that you see in the film actually you know that uh now I'm always you know I mean the interviews we took place over relatively short periods of time so as an anthropologist I've been much more interested in seeing how these things happen over time uh and whether they're maintained etc in these these relationships and these notions of whether something is you know the robot is still an actor you know the robot is still given agency or has agency you know so um and that kind of you know even if it's not kind of has its own autonomous AI you know it's kind of people are going to create uh you know notions of of interaction with the robot you know and um you know we saw that in terms of you know the the IBO robot and how it would wander off and it would do things that were unexpected and you know that serendipity that was inherent to those interactions some of them programmed some of them not some of them were unexpected in way beyond the kind of what would have been expected by the developers and the programmers that was that was kind of essential to the notion of co-presencing really you know I think you know that and that's why I use that quote at the end you know about the flaws of the robot being quite important because that came across quite heavily uh for me um yeah so that's a start on your big question you know there are other questions there were other kind of thoughts as you were talking you know about the the safety issues you know about the use cases you know some of the robots you know essentially you know some of the robot beds for instance and kind of those single more single use pieces for transferring aids or etc those are going to be you know designing those very carefully are really important and there was you know there were attempts to kind of do this with humanoid robots that were not very uh practical really in terms of helping older people with who else you know kind of bones and skin to kind of transfer and you know there were other ways to to do that uh I think another piece uh just in terms of what you're mentioning is and there's a bit of the film that I had to cut out unfortunately there was a there was a wonderful talk there was a lot of the film I had to cut out to keep it down to 30 minutes uh unfortunately um but there was well there was a a roboticist who kind of you know he's a very famous roboticist in Japan who was talking and he was talking about the kind of for him some of his concerns about robots and safety etc were really about AI about sure networking as as the director of the nursing home talks about at the end but for him it you know it's the fact that you know AI and some of the forms of advanced AI that are coming or black box it goes beyond what the developers would have imagined in creating algorithms you know and so I think that for him was one of the major issues because it's you know it goes beyond the expected you know what can be planned for um anyway there's just a few a few thoughts based upon your your question thank you so now do you have any input yeah thank you very much um for businesses so um what I would just add there is um the kind of the importance of trust um at the organizational level um I mean this is a particular kind of a case um you know the use of robots within the context of residential nursing home and we interviewed um several different nursing homes and not for this film but for the project hub and um there are different reasons the initial reason of introducing robots and the incentives like a lot of incentives are like financial and I also the lack of resources and so on but that's really for me um it starts to become clear and that's not the kind of social success just in terms of bringing robots and I mean it doesn't have to be robots but the obviously robot takes the shape of human or you know animals or I mean so it's a different and from the safety and monitoring system like a camera for instance and as soon as it takes that form and there's kind of interactions starts to take place human and and robot and then but the robot coming in to that space where I think safety is important care is important and there has to be trust and so care professionals have to trust and the introduction of robots is not kind of a replacement of their work and the devaluation of their work and also older persons have to feel safe so like robots not started to start you know sing and attack them or whatever you know like the kind of the fear and so I guess where there is trust from before the introduction of robots there is a chance because everybody's working towards you know importance of care and quality of care safety and so on so forth so um I think it kind of comes down to that but I mean obviously um the robots having the robots can increase the sense of security safety and so on but it could go the the other way so that balance is really important thank you very much there's there's another question in the chat that relates directly to that by Polina who asks thank you for two very interesting presentations and a fascinating documentary I wonder whether you could expand a little bit on the tensions between care and surveillance are the risks human made or technology made well I'll kind of hand that over to now really but like you know I mean I suppose you know I've been you know I mean working as a technologist or an anthropologist working with technologists over the years you know this is often you know something that's discussed by technologists you know and kind of they're always we're asking well how can we you know for instance we're using camera technologies we're kind of you know with an AI behind them we're monitoring people's actions etc for and often for you know laudable purposes from that perspective you know which is kind of use cases around people falling out of bed in this particular case or people with dementia wondering or whatever this is usually a good reason but it's about how that is then implemented and the kind of the discussions that happen around that both with the older person and the network around them and the various actors within that network I think that's really important that that's designed as much as the technology you know I think that's something that we really need to be thinking about and that's why I think the kind of growth of service design is so important right now you know rather than just looking at the interactions etc I think this is the the social bit that we should be looking at and you know and is it is it enough to just have these filters you know is it you know can we really guarantee the that when you know that this you know what is happening to this data you know is it kind of is it running through the cloud what are the risks of that you know is it a closed loop system you know all those kinds of things kind of need to be worked through I'm teaching my students at the moment and I'm thinking about using the coded bias documentary I don't know if anybody's seen it you know it's part of that teaching you know and and discussing some of these issues you know anybody you know is it's kind of surfacing some of these these questions as well okay now yeah okay thank you so the tensions between candidates are various I mean in a sense yeah when I mentioned trust that was probably the answer but there are multiple users multiple stakeholders and then it really depends I mean it is really subjective and so certain people in the same organization nursing home basically objected I mean you know they didn't want to use the robot and so they had a choice of saying no and to the the simple use I mean that's just the introduction of the tool and instrument and then the way it's actually being used I mean there's also and subjectivity and some people probably feel it's the introduction of privacy even though as you saw the silhouette and kind of images that are captured by the monitoring sensor some people would see it as surveillance still but in the case I mean like when people accept it that is actually enhancing quality of care I mean because if you think about it's like you know the during the nighttime the highest risk is for and like when the fall happens then that would kind of deteriorate the whole kind of quality of life and so on like it could reduce mental capacity as well so it's at most sort of priority for the care stuff and family members so some people who agreed to be sort of being monitored that way they of course saw it as care but like third person looking at that thing oh goodness you know sake I don't want that and so on so forth so it's I don't know how to there's no really I'm not answering the question but um there's always remains tension there and between care and surveillance so that's why trust is important organizational sort of support is important and so on so forth that's that's very interesting I think we quite we get quite a lot of questions on all channels really let me put two together here there's one in the chat by Egon Lyon who asks what about human contact would disappear or where human contact really is needed and there's a similar question in the Q&A by Heather Jochans who asks one concern people have had during this pandemic is how the lack of physical human connection has adversely affected the elderly in care homes is this a concern that has been expressed with the talk of introducing robots into care work so the question of whether that can replace human contact or not you know I think it's been heartbreaking you know seeing what's been happening in nursing homes across the world you know I I've got a bit of an insight and we've shown some of those in terms of the nursing home within Japan in in Ireland you know the not only of the nursing home has been hit so badly by the pandemic many many deaths of both residents and staff but the the the consequences that we've seen of people being unable to have sufficient human contact either with staff or with with their family members who are no longer able to to visit them is is being shocking and probably not wholly unexpected but I think it's something that you know we all have to reflect upon and I don't think that even with you know the social technologies that we have these days robots are not going to replace that you know there's it's just you need to find ways to kind of manage and bring these relationships together I think there's again there's a bit of the film that I cut and I'm feeling really guilty I think there needs to be a longer version of this but there's there was a lovely discussion with the nursing home manager about when I was asking about this this same question about human contact and robots and I do think there is a you know very real possibility you know that you know you you know we talk about augmenting using technology to augment support and you know and I think that's that's again a lot of blame but again we also have to be very careful about how we design these services or we design these things into you know and make sure that we're not inadvertently kind of doing exactly that I think there's there's a lot of things these robots can do they can help I mean what we saw with the in the nursing home that you know it actually acted and I know paro the invention of paro said the same thing that these robots can sometimes act as kind of think as I suppose artifacts inside the nursing home that generate conversations that generate sociality etc but I when I was talking with the nursing home director in Japan and we we had this wonderful conversation where I asked a question based upon some of the things that were going on in Ireland with robots and where people are using these kind of humanoid robots to kind of rum bingo sessions and dance sessions and you know etc and just experimenting with that as a notion and I asked her is that on her plans did she plan to do this and she's kind of shocked you know she's like no that would you know that's what human beings are for that's what I care is for this whole idea is about giving the opportunity more then more opportunity to do that which I thought was very very interesting you know so again it's something I you know in retrospect I wish I hadn't got but I just had so much much you know you know so much material now no yeah and so I think in the film and the manager or care professional and I can't remember who said it well basically the use of robot should create and time for person centered or person to person and kind of interaction so if that thought is shared amongst all the staff members and if that was actually put to practice I guess that's that's okay but often again this standardization and personalization I think David was talking about there is also tension like in how much time you're going to spend doing this physical exercise and you know session or is that task can be sort of delegated sort of delegated to robots and then the other aspects that they am human being like so again they are I think different views about when is the right moment to use technologies and robots not human beings I mean I mean my students like when they watch this film said like why why can we invest more money in care setting and so and so it's like they are these obviously this sort of a dichotomy cold care versus warm care and as long as technologies come in and hard shell robot humanoid robots coming in that's cold care it's not that simple straightforward and that's my sort of experience and listening to people and get and professionals working there and also family members so um yeah I should stop here for now but there are some tensions thank you yes we're I think we're all awaiting the director's cut that will hopefully be released at some point we have a live question here from Barbara Picconi have I been admitted yes okay thank you yes Barbara Picconi here I am a linguist so my question really stems from my interest in in in language I think just just picking up on what was just said is of course there's no black black and white question about you know what computer sorry what robots can do but I think it becomes a legitimate question when we are talking about um social computer robots I don't know why keep saying computer social robots so this this this area of sociality that um uh we we need to get used to robots doing the things that humans do right so we it's it's an area that needs needs needs to be discovered by users and and and um getting get get used to um my question really has to do to um with the planning of how these robots communicate with humans and and and how they are designed to speak and and I don't know much about um robots in in home care but I'm always rather um surprised by how how stereotypical many of these robots sound um maybe robots that I used more for entertainment purposes but uh how stereotypical their language is often you know stereotypes of femininity or cuteness kawaii kind of speech styles and so I'm I'm wondering whether you heard anything whether you can tell anything about the the the decisions that are made on how robots are supposed to communicate or speak to humans um in the domain of of of social robotics and and home care in particular thank you thank you very much okay so uh this is not my area I have to say you know in terms of designing language but uh it's a it is a fascinating question really I think kind of you know and it's it is a discussion that I've kind of had with my wife really in terms of looking at these these these technologies and she didn't notice this kind of this user of cuteness etc within the Japanese context and how would that work within the Irish context for instance you know in different cultural situations um I suppose one thing that is worth noting is that you know with robots like Sophia um you know you know that you know robots that kind of her are really have very well and highly developed um kind of likenesses to human beings that can often be off putting um you know so you know and this is that uncanny valley that you know that needs to be overcome that kind of worry about you know so actually having something that is quite other can actually uh you know I wonder is you know it may be a strategy here but um I don't know if now if you have anything that's a great question by the way it's a great design question yes um thank you very much um Bob for instance so um when we brought in commercially available robots um their voice was said and to kind of sound as five-year-old boy um and that worked for some people but they didn't work for others so when we decided to develop an original robot um plush toy sort of soft cuddly um robot we went for this kawaii thing for the appearance but we actually had to slow down the speech itself so it's it's no longer kind of a boy just speaking as the kind of a normal at normal speed I think you heard it like um I think one of the film during the um pandemic um so the robot really speaks slowly and it's there's no kawaii or there's no like it's basically it's just really about input and outputs which was also mentioned by the manager so for all the people and actually if if the robot is made for um different target audience targets um so children and so on children with autism and so on so forth I mean I think there have to be different types of voice different types of speed and so on so forth um and I think there has to be a lot of testing there is different um kind of people so that that's all I know and I don't exactly know whether they can actually find like the optimal um sort of a sound or the the voice or the language um use so thank you yeah that's a really I think a question that that the many of us were thinking about um there's quite there's quite a few more there's eight more questions um in the chat we'll just go through um in order next question is from Lyman Gambiton who asks um or who says I was struck by the strengths of affection directed to the robot dog by its owner she simultaneously recognized the dog as a robot e.g. talking about it charging in the morning while talking about it as a living animal i.e. it falls asleep in funny places could you elaborate a little on the emotional dynamics of this non-human companionship and we have a similar question um sort of asking about the emotional uh dynamics a little bit further down by Valentina Stracova who asked what do we know about the process of establishing a relationship between an elderly user and a communication robot what makes the robots endearing to the user have you explored how different materials change how the user perceived the robots thank you very much for sharing your wonderful research with us hmm that's great thank you some really good questions um yeah the the I suppose in terms of materials now knowing probably has quite a bit to say about uh the use of materials for different purposes in different robots etc especially in some of the more pusher robots and um you know the kind of the the forms of movements the kind of the you know tactile kind of you know uh I think this this is this is you know it's not just the materials it's the kind of the way these um these devices feel and you know the barriers to developing the relationship uh were quite clear in you know I thought it was one of the interesting elements in in the film within that you know as we kind of unfolded that relationship with that the lady had with her robot dog and um you know the the fact that it's um there are times when it has downtime you know that she wants it to be interactive during that point when it's charging um you know the you know but equally the fact that it breaks is endearing to her you know the fact that well not that it breaks but that it kind of it does things that are unexpected like it ends up in the in the closet somewhere or you know it kind of ends up in you know it kind of winds down at different points one thing I found interesting with her was that she'd kind of she she'd originally received the uh and I do think she had that that that kind of relationship of kind of yes I know that it's a robot but equally it is making a difference in my life um and you know it's especially in lots of apartments for instance where you can't have a pet you can't have you know uh or you know having filling those empty spaces in the day is often done by the tv or the radio or those kind of those different things and it's just have it's just another way for her in many ways she kind of says it's the co-presencing piece it's the kind of it's enough that she knows it's there you know and it's it's doing things and she's able to interact with it in terms of some of the how she kind of really engaged with it it tended to be in that case that particular robot it was with her grandchildren as a toy and kind of she was delighted about that that it kind of was something with her young grandchildren but then the relationship then took off beyond that you know in many ways that you know because they in some ways the like the the robot can be quite intrusive you're there you're kind of perhaps you know there's a bunch of people together and then the the robot's coming over and it's yipping and it's kind of trying to be get attract your attention or it's going over to the tv you know but then it's also creating these moments I do I'll just reiterate what I said I think about the kind of the flaws of the robot that's ever so important and sometimes those are kind of designers are building those in as well for instance you know the the clip where you kind of see the the robot saying listen can I just have a rest you know because it's kind of you know it is a question about how long does that last you know those two other types of kind of those moments okay Kostya now thank you um no much to add but um I think in the case of Aibo and the owner um I think it's the the movement I mean there's a novelty aspect for sure um and um but also the the movement that is really imitating real dog um I mean it's still simplified in many ways but um it's that's sort of a kind of a generous curiosity and that kind of um I mean obviously creates the interactions with the human beings like talking about this and so on so um she um told me not like during the interview but um she didn't have much expectation at the beginning um when I actually I think her sister brought that dog to her and then the reaction of her grandson like which um they mentioned and so on so forth so and then she got more and more curious um so that's how she developed like a grew more attached um to dog and because she has you know mental capacity and so knowing it's actually not a real dog but she's three remains curious about it so again the question is I mean it's always same with other types of robots how long will people use and will they actually get bored will they actually because it's not living thing um so it's different but um it serves certain purposes and in this case killing time when she's along and so on so forth and she she talks about that she also talks about kind of like moments like when she picks up the dog and it stops moving you know in a way that you know I think those types of things will obviously be have to be worked upon um you know going forward I mean she she it was it was a fascinating interview and as you kind of go on and most of it's could obviously um but those kind of bits um you know where she I mean she had some fascinating and really really insightful comments to make about how she felt these things could be improved and kind of would benefit into her household. Thank you um there's a question by Ann Aronson who writes uh thank you for your talk Professor Kotate and the evocative documentary Professor Brenda Garth my question to both of you are as follows one machines are already embedded within our lives but as we start to treat machines as if they are almost human we may begin to develop habits that will cause us to treat human beings as almost machines what does loving social robots mean for example as we saw in the documentary what does it mean to love eyeball that's the first question the second is in terms of acceptance of robotic devices what is defined perceived as natural versus what is unnatural or artificial in Japan? Yeah these are fascinating questions Nanoya I think you can take this one for to start. Thank you um Davis and Ann Sensei I know you're actually a specialist in this and so you probably know the answers um yeah I mean it's very different I mean the case again like just using Japan as the case study and for this I mean Japan has the government and you know it's you know kind of very much um in the public policy domain and it's being pushed out um so the government wants you to use more robots um the government wants industry to develop more robots and so it's kind of driven you know the driver comes from somewhere else and apart from just human robot interactions but I do recognize the danger of sort of living the kind of virtual reality and especially in the case of other people and the k-homes and so on this mental capacity um decision-making capacity and so on if people start to believe um oh they can't tell you know what's the reality and so on I think that's where there's like a lot of ethical issues coming in I don't have the answer like you know how we can deal with that um so there's obviously guidelines coming out and so on um but um it is still a very human question um what does loving social robots mean um yeah I really don't have the answer I'm sorry I get really need to think about this um but um David I'll pass it on to you um and I keep thinking about your questions yeah I mean this is going to be something I'm going to have to think about because you know you've wrote up a really interesting question of um as as we start to treat machine as if they're almost human or may begin to develop habits that will cause us to treat human beings as almost machines and I do think that this is a real problem uh or it's a concern it's something that we have to be thinking about as we think about society now and we think about how we're using algorithms and it goes way beyond social robotics um think about how what data is being collected how that's being utilized what how that's driving decisions um you know around you know court cases or CVs or you know what happens with interviews there you know it's a it's a really big question and I don't think that kind of it's you know and I don't think you're reducing it to robots at all I think you know it's a really very very important question um I think robots you know kind of and they interact as an embodiment in in in in in the world and you know that that may have something to do with but it is I think this is these are some of the big questions about time you know I think these are some of the questions that we need to be addressing um you know whether as as anthropologists or policymakers or developers uh so thank you very much for that question yeah I I thought they're actually similar thing because at the beginning when the the pepper does the radiocaiso you immediately think ah the reason why the robot can do this so easily is because the movements in and of themselves already have some somewhat robotic quality so I think that's a really interesting question to follow up um I there's two more questions that we can put together that are slightly more financially orientated uh the first one is what is the evidence of cost effectiveness of physical robots not sensors and what is the trade-off between more expensive tech cost and reduced utility asks professor ala Shippura from Coventry University and we have a second anonymous question in the similar vein um asking how affordable are robots in Japan and how widespread is their use in care if you have any data to share thank you great okay this is definitely now's area not mine uh you know in in relation to to to this I will say that I um you know I was blown away by how expensive some of these technologies are like those eyeball but dogs I'm not sure if it's still the case but you know looking at maybe $3,000 or whatever maybe I'm wrong uh but they they were very very expensive some of the technologies because they're they're they're emergent you know they're not scaled at the moment um I think kind of there's been attempts to you know like with the soft bang bang pepper etc you know and kind of trying to find new use cases and exploring and I think that's going to happen I I'm I still think this is in its infancy I think robotics in general and social robotics uh kind of the guardian work the in-care homes this is not a developed area speaking as someone that's worked in the technology industry for a long time I think there's a lot of space there I think it's also like in many areas of e-health as well it's it's a market of pilots you know there's lots of things going on but there's not really a chief scale yet the markets are still being worked out and will you know and and and again I think there needs to be more and more investment into you know the service design aspects of these as well to really understand how these are going to fit in just putting a robot into a nursing home is there's a cost there there's a capital cost etc you know especially if it's linked in with kind of different ways data's flowing but there's also the kind of all those costs of maintaining these things and in and kind of building them into their interactions of the nursing home uh that has to be designed have to be thought about um you know so those and I don't think those costs tend to be kind of you know what what costs is there in terms of staff time is there a member of staff that's dedicated to these or do these things just end up in a cupboard because after a while there isn't a member of staff who's looking after them so again I'm just trying to kind of problematize you know this this element of it just bring it to the fore and thinking about the economics of of this um but I I kind of probably was expecting more in Japan actually to be honest you know in terms of you know I was amazed at kind of what I saw in the nursing home and what was being tested and you know but it certainly wasn't um anywhere it seemed more close to the hyperbole you know I think this this is something that's developing but now Nori what would you say to this? Yeah thank you very much Ala Sensei um so cost effectiveness um it's it's I think as David said at this point it's more about the effectiveness we we still don't know um how effective they are for what and so it's again it's been pushed by the government as a kind of additional item to support care and also I think there is definitely an effort which I actually appreciate in terms of changing the image of care industry and care sector and so to create a better work environment I mean you may or you may disagree with you know bringing more technologies may not necessarily make the workplace better but and there are certain um aspects of care in social care I'm not talking about medical and hospital setting it is the care homes and there are certain um aspects about the the hardship and the challenges and physical and physically challenging and workplace environment which obviously leads to the loss of trained care stuff so to support them bringing into um technologies um extra skeleton I mean in power suits and so on um has a value for sure but um again it's not replacement so therefore it's an additional cost and in terms of nursing homes making decisions to buy purchases it is still a big big decision um so there could be like over time detrimental impact in terms of hiring human and carers because they bring in those kind of expensive technologies but there are also aspects about um the the gaps between needs and the kind of technologies that have been developed so um there have been a lot of efforts um to bring stakeholders together to actually look at this and I guess including the cost and I think there was some question and probably early on um about how spread how actually how many you know care homes actually using these roles there aren't many um care homes and that's partly because the lack of training it actually is additional cost additional cost not just the economic cost the psychological cost like you know um human carers have to relearn some of the skills they they'd rather um lift up um all the person you know before wearing all their passuits and all of these aspects have to be considered so there has to be kind of a systems kind of a thinking in terms of care as overall kind of ecological and sort of a landscape um in that context so I'll stop here thank you thank you very much we've already gone almost 10 minutes uh over time so I think it's it's time to stop now apologies for those who have asked questions uh whom we couldn't uh get to answer um but please join me in thanking Professor Kodate and Professor Prendegas for really a thought-provoking presentation and film screening I'm sure this will lead to lots of conversations that you will take uh further from here thank you very much um for joining us today and I just want to briefly announce our next talk which will be held on the 26th of January so in two weeks time uh the title is Udagawa Yoan pioneer of botany and chemistry studies in Japan from western sources and the talk will be given by Dr Yona Sidder from the Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science Technology and Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem so we'll continue our topic uh of science and technology uh both historical and contemporary but for now please join me in thanking the presenters thank you very much thank you thank you everybody great questions