FEEL THE LOVE

The Soul in the Machine

When I was ushered into the room, the professor motioned me to a chair, his hands playing nervously, his shoulders rising with each breath. “Ask me anything you like,” he said, fixing me with an intent look, before staring at the floor despondently when I began to chuckle. “How many actuators do you have?” I said. “I have 50 pneumatic actuators in my upper body, including 17 in my head, five of which I use to move my lips for speech, and four activitators to make my shoulder move in a natural fashion.” “Do you believe in God?” “Um, er…,”: Ishiguro put his finger to his face in embarrassment. “Good question. Maybe you should ask the professor that one?”

The “professor” was being operated in a nearby room by a young research assistant. I met the real Ishiguro the next day. He argued that Japan’s easy acceptance of robots had religious roots. In both Buddhism and Shintoism, the soul is everywhere and “just as we don’t distinguish between humans and rocks, so we don’t distinguish between humans and robots.” By contrast, Honda had sought the Vatican’s advice ten years ago before introducing Asimo’s forerunner to Europe.
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In Japan people “feel love for robots”, as Doc put it, and want to care for them. “We Japanese want to live alongside robots.” They give robots human qualities–kawaii, “cute”, is perhaps Japan’s most squealed word. Robots are not threatening or alienating, they create feelings of security, comfort and companionship. Their cuteness tips over into the cloying. Don’t misunderstand me. I was not taken with Western notions of robots as a threat–of Daleks and Terminators. But I could take them or leave them.