Pepper the robot gets to work in Japan

Image credit: SoftBank.

You fax some documents to the retirement home before rushing out the door to visit your mother for her birthday. You pick up a present at the store and hear one of the sales people introducing a new coffee maker in a childlike voice. Peaking around the corner, there’s a glossy white robot enthusiastically waving about and explaining the features of the machine. While sipping on a cappuccino, you browse for your mom’s favorite CD before grabbing the bullet train. On the platform another shiny robot dressed as a stationmaster is explaining to two tourists how to get into the city.

You arrive at the home a little late and ask the nurse where your mother is. She directs you to the exercise room. There’s a familiar voice coming over the speaker. Walking through the door you smile at your mother while she raises her arms up and down in time with our little robot friend in the front of the class.

2016

It’s 2016 – and the robots are clearly in charge. Albeit in a very polite and gentle way.
The soft-spoken voice belongs to Pepper, the emotional humanoid robot by Japanese internet and telecom giant SoftBank. Founder and CEO Masayoshi Son first revealed Pepper on stage in 2014 and the two have shared several public moments since.

Pepper fist bumping a conference attendee. Image credit: ARMdevices.net.

Years before courting ARM, SoftBank had a fling with French robotics company Aldebaran and eventually brought the firm under the SoftBank name. There are now over 10,000 Peppers in the wild, working hard.

Pepper responds to your voice, facial expressions, body language, and words. The latest version is programmed to do 28 jobs. It will soon do more as SoftBank and IBM are busily working to adapt Watson’s artificial intelligence to Pepper.

Weigh in

Pepper is about the size of the average eight-year-old. Its four directional microphones and combination of cameras, lasers, and other sensors allow Pepper to recognize objects and determine where they are coming from.

Pepper’s emotional engine is supposedly modeled after human hormones and improves daily because it is connected to SoftBank’s artificial intelligence over the internet. All the sensor data is stored in a single shared location, which allows individual Peppers to access information from previous interactions with humans and analyze various facial expressions and emotional cues. Companies are greatly interested in the insights such big data can provide.

While there is also a personal version of Pepper that can shoot the dozens in a rap battle, dance around, or talk about specific topics like sushi, “Pepper for biz 2.0” launched last month with more functions at a cost of around US$550 per month for three years.

Pepper leading a dance class at a nursing home with music from karaoke company Joysound. Image credit: Joysound.

The upgrade allows Pepper to do things like be the frontline salesman at a car dealership by referencing a database of cars to start the conversation, lead exercises and recreation at hospitals and retirement homes, help you get over your fear of public speaking by giving a presentation for you, and perhaps take away late-night comedian’s jobs by finding and reading tweets out loud.

Can it work, work, work, work work?

2040