Hiroshi Ishiguro: Are robots a reflection of ourselves?

Maholo Uchida: I would like to start at the beginning: why did you begin making humanoid robots?

Hiroshi Ishiguro: I began my career in computer science before moving into artificial intelligence and robotics. My motivation for making humanoid robots stems from an interest in understanding what makes us human, and what it means to be human. When building robots and studying how humans interact with them, I noticed how a robot’s appearance and movements significantly influences the outcomes of these interactions. Hereby began my research into human-like robots or androids.

MU: You’ve been making humanoid robots for the last twenty years. How have your projects developed during this time?

HI: I began my research into robotics thirty years ago and my initial goal was to create a vision-guided robot or a kind of automatic driving system. During this time, I came to understand how robots need to have two types of vision systems: panoramic vision for understanding location and surroundings, and active vision for understanding and recognising objects.

I am now interested in developing human-like appearances and behaviours in robots. I am particularly interested in eye movements and head movements, and how these are used to navigate environments. Therefore, whilst my initial motivation was focused on limited human functions, I have since extended my interests to study complex functions relating to intelligence and human-robot interactions.

MU: Much of your research focuses on the physical appearance of robots. Could you explain a bit about why appearance is important to consider when creating a robot?

HI: The significance and implications of a robot’s appearance is one of my main research topics and I am currently investigating how robots with differing appearances perform in a range of situations. I am creating many types of androids at the moment – female androids, male androids, elderly androids, young androids, and androids that have a neutral appearance or are mechanical-looking.

One of the significant findings from these studies has been around the importance of activating the human imagination. If our imaginations are activated when interacting with a robot, we become more accepting of it and therefore our interactions become more meaningful. My solution to this finding was the Telenoid. The Telenoid looks in many ways like a human but its age and gender are undefined, thereby encouraging people to imagine or fill in the gaps relating to its identity.
Furthermore, cuteness is very important in robotics and I think everything should be cute in some sense. If an android that has a humanlike appearance performs non-human-like behaviours, the android can suddenly become quite uncanny and therefore no longer cute.

MU: You have famously made a robot in the image of yourself, an Ishiguro humanoid. Can you tell me about your experience interacting with your humanoid?

HI: When I created my humanoid (named the Geminoid), everyone commented on how similar its appearance and behaviours were to my own, but I disagreed. This led me to contemplate on how I don’t really know my own appearance, voice, or movements. Of course, we are using my humanoid for other psychological experiments and scientific studies and we are discovering many interesting things, but that was the most important finding for me – that we don’t really recognise ourselves.

MU: What kind of robot do you hope to create in the future?


HI: My goal is to install intentions and desires in a robot. In the future we are going to use more completed autonomous systems. These systems will be complicated, beyond the understanding of most people, so it is therefore essential the robots have their own desire to interact with humans. I want to develop machines that are programmed with this intention to support human beings.

MU: How do you think humanoid robots will be integrated in future societies? Do you think their integration will change the way we live?

HI: To help illustrate my point, I want to consider vending machines in Japan, which are a kind of robot. We have thousands of vending machines in Japan and everyone trusts them not to make mistakes. But imagine if they do begin to make mistakes, sometimes giving too much change, or sometimes too little. Or suppose the vending machines misunderstand the difference between Coco Cola and Pepsi Cola. In this circumstance people would likely give a human likeness to the vending machines and the interaction between vending machines and humans would begin to shift.

As we develop more autonomous robots with intentions and desires, we may witness changes in our society. At some point we are going to have societies where humans and machines co-exist in a symbiotic way and new social norms will need to be formed to maintain stability.