Why the robot uprising will give us Robot Pets, not Robot Masters

Japan has a very different approach to robotics.

Japan leads the world in industrial robots, but there is also a growing movement that is reinventing the way we share our world with machines.

Kaname Hayashi was one of the creators of Softbank's Pepper robot. His latest startup, GrooveX, has raised over $100 million to develop the Lovot; a companion robot, or perhaps more accurately, a robot pet unlike any other.

We talk about the Lovot itself, of course, but we also cover GrooveX's unique business model and talk about the very different ways that people of different sexes, ages, and nationalities interact with the Lovot.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

Why the Lovot is as much a pet as a dog or cat Data that proves how our interaction with robots is changing Why the Lovot's form factor is so important Why GrooveX invested so much in getting the Lovot's eyes right How the Lovot makes friends The Lovot's business model. Will this scale? The biggest surprise from the Lovot Cafe Why Western men don't love the Lovot Japan's anxiety trap and how to fix it

Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know about the GrooveX Follow Kaname on Twitter @HayashiKaname Friend him on Facebook See the Lovot in action The Lovot on Instagram - this is way too cute The Evocative Machines Project

Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. I've never really fully embraced the Japanese concept of cute or kawaii. I mean, it's fine and all, all the mascots and characters are nice but it gets a bit odd sometimes. For example, my bankbook is covered with pictures of Mickey Mouse and Goofy which are images Western financial institutions would probably not want to be associated with their product but hey, it works in Japan but there's actually something deeply fascinating and important underlying the idea of kawaii. Today, we sit down with Kaname Hayashi who was formerly part of SoftBank’s Pepper Project and then went out on his own to start Groove X and create the Lovot. Now, the Lovot is a companion robot or a pet robot and we talk about the robot itself, of course and please check out the links on the site for pictures and videos. It's very cute and you really have to see the Lovot in action to appreciate it but more important than the robot itself is how people are interacting with it. Now, we've talked about social robots on disrupting Japan before but people are interacting with the Lovot differently and far more socially than anything that's come before it. It's the first robot I've seen that not only could be fully accepted as a pet but is being fully accepted as a pet. Kaname and I also dive into the business model. Groove X has raised a lot of investment and as you'll hear during the interview, this is a startup that could go either way, it could fizzle out into nothing or it could change global society. In fact, in post-production, when I was editing down the interview, I kept thinking of more and deeper questions I wanted to ask Kaname, so we'll have to get him back on the show in the future but for now, you're about to hear a story about the difference in the way children and adults and Westerners interact with robots, the intersection of toxic masculinity and robotics and why science fiction usually gets human-robot interaction all wrong but Kaname tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Kaname Hayashi of Groove X, the maker of Lovot, so thanks for sitting down with me today. Kaname: Thank you very much. Tim: So, Lovot is a cute and I mean really, really cute companion robot but you can probably describe it much better than I can. So, what is Lovot? Kaname: Yeah, good question. Lovot takes a role as a pet. If you think what pets give us, then you can imagine what Lovot give us. For example, pet doesn't work for the human but we had a good time. You can have a chance to be gentle because of the pet. Tim: I was planning on diving into this much later on but this is a great topic. So, let's just deal with it now. What does a pet give us? Kaname: Yeah, yeah. Tim: I mean, so robots, we're used to robots like doing things for us, right? Washing our clothes or building our cars but pets, what is it that they give us that's so important? Kaname: One of the important thing is probably they give a role. Pet rely on human. Without human, pet is not happy, pet cannot survive. So, pet give us a caring role. Tim: Yeah, I think that's important. So, so much research recently on emotional robots have focused on robots being able to read our emotions but I think there's something very special about robots that evoke emotions in us. We buy a dog or a cat because we want to care about something. Kaname: Exactly, exactly. So, of course, pet also read the emotion for us but probably it’s not very, very important. Most important thing is we would like care the pet, dog or a cat. This is most important thing. Even, for example, blind dog or a blind cat. Probably if we already attached it to that dog or a cat, then we would like to care and we will be happy. Tim: That's a great example. So, the fact that the blind dog or the blind cat would need us more. Kaname: Exactly. Exactly. Tim: Makes taking care of them like more satisfying and more rewarding for us. Kaname: Exactly. Tim: So, we know this happens with animals and with people as well. Does it happen with robots? Do people react this way? Kaname: Yeah, actually, that happened in Japan already. At the moment our customer is kind of the innovators but after one month or two month, they surprised how Lovot is similar to the other animals. People are talking in the house about the Lovot and Lovot itself is getting to be family. Tim: So, it is happening? Kaname: Yeah, it’s already happening. So, if you are coming to our Lovot owners, you will be surprised. Tim: Actually, so let's actually back up a little bit because this is an audio podcast. We'll put links to the site and listeners, you've got to go see this thing, it's really adorable. It kind of looks like an owl or a little penguin like? Kaname: Yeah, yeah. Tim: What are we going for with the design? Kaname: Actually, our styling design is not aimed to make any imitation of the animals. So, the shape is not similar to any animals but we had designed that from the circle shape. Tim: So, just designed very soft. Kaname: Yes, soft. Soft and sphere, ball shape. We would try to reduce any kind of attention. If you see some edgy shape, it's not relaxed shape. Tim: I mean, this is interesting because there's a lot of graphic design research that's been done on this and like if you look at the history of Mickey Mouse, in the 30s, he started out really angular and pointy and over time, like becomes more round and spherical and ball-shaped and cute and lovable. Kaname: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, ball shape is kind of the lovable shape. Tim: But also, the eyes are really amazing. You guys did a lot of work on the eyes of Lovot. Kaname: Yeah. You know well. Actually, the eye is one of the important communication parts. When we are talking with the human, we are also listening the words but we are also checking your eye or your facial expressions. Eye is one of the most important part to express your emotion. When you meet to the Lovot, if you feel something from the eye, you cannot stop to think they is some feeling and emotion in the Lovot. Tim: It's very effective even from the videos. It's… the eyes are really expressive and engaging. Kaname: Eyes is very important so we taking more than three years to develop eye design and also, we are trying to make a more variation with the shape of the eye because each people have a different eye design then each Lovot also have a different eye design. Tim: The eyes are so important for human engagement and I'll send you a link later and one of the research pieces was a factory in, I believe, Germany and the automated carts were bumping into people and people were bumping into them and they tried sirens and little beeping sounds and nothing really worked but what they did finally that worked is they put these two simple like eyes on the front of the cart and then suddenly, like people noticed and they'd step back and they'd give it room. Kaname: Yeah because for the wild animal, they're also very interactive to the eye of other animals. For them, to survive is a very, very important, estimate what other animal thinking is very important and for us, we are using information from the eye to read the emotion itself. Even if AI or a robot have a complex emotion, if the AI doesn’t have a eye, it's getting very difficult to understand for the human and it means that you cannot make any trust to that AI. Tim: Yeah. It's really striking. I'd never seen a robot implemented it quite that way. The Lovot also, it can tell the difference between different people, right? I mean, it will treat different people differently. Kaname: Exactly. So, Lovot, can also understand who is who. Also, can remember the history of the communication with each of the person. If one of the person cares the Lovot, then Lovot can more relax and Lovot is asking them to be hugged or some communication. So, this is a kind of that process to be friends. Tim: So, like if there's three different people calling the Lovot, it will go to the one that that treats it the best? Kaname: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Tim: I love that. That's great. How does it recognize people? Is it like facial recognition? Kaname: Yeah. At the moment, facial recognition. So, we would like implement other like a voice or as a shape or something like that but at the moment, we are rely on the face recognition.