March 27, 2008If You're Sad and You Know It, Find a Robot?A story on the news last week struck me as extraordinarily ironic. A conference in Amsterdam featured robots--all made from Lego robotics sets--created for a contest to "show how humans can live better with robots," as reporter Jeremy Hubbard stated it. Many of the robots were centered around the idea of emotions; one in particular has, among other features, movable eyebrows and is supposed to help children learn to express and deal with fears. I didn't need a robot to help me express what I felt after seeing the story: namely, sadness and even some fear. While I realize not everyone is able to express their emotions easily or in healthy ways, are we really at a place where we need robots--machines incapable of actually feeling anything--to teach us and our children how to do it? I hope the only way these emotion-portraying robots help us is to perhaps highlight the places we're failing at human connection and authenticity, and spur us to action. Posted by Lisa Rieck at March 27, 2008 2:10 PM
I would like to buy the robot that can and will cook/clean in hopes that it will encourage me to do the same. Posted by: Dan at March 27, 2008 3:03 PMI suppose it might distract children from their anger, or whatever, the first time or two. Probably the parents of children needing such a thing wouldn't buy it anyway! Posted by: Gran at March 30, 2008 3:03 PM |
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