mhm. Hi. Hello. You can lift it
up. Thank you. Studies program here. The
kind of directing the comfort. Oh Mm. Mhm
in charge. And I want to welcome you again
to the 2014 Gender Bodies and Technology Conference. Human
. You should know that we have over 100 people
here visiting for Spoke to the United Kingdom, Canada
, Austria. And we had you find it Little
summer. Uh huh. Um, and of course
, folks call from all over the United since our
first conference in 2010. And I want to show
you some of our archives Our pro 10 2012.
And after a couple first listen. And we have
an active Facebook following and Twitter following. And of
course, our blog is underway. Thanks to you
all for making the trip here and sharing your expertise
, making it an amazing experience. Today I attended
a workshop about were symmetries. I listened to a
paper about gender documentary, the Spanish Civil War.
Watch your performance outside where the performative and the technological
boundaries were challenged by body and the multiple disciplinary perspectives
represented here illustrate I gave the important for a moment
I'd like to stop and recognize Dr Barbara Allen Smith
, who's sitting here. Oh would like to recognize
her being our former director studies and also a key
our Gender Bodies Technology Initiative. The initiative began in
2000 and seven with a group of women's and gender
studies faculty representing several disciplines from across our campus,
including computer science, science and technology and society,
theater, visual arts, English, sociology and education
. And we were interested in exporting relationships between technology
and gender and class and identity, among other things
, with particular attention paid to five as a site
where these relationships can be investigated. Seven years,
three visiting faculty at three international conferences later. This
initiative is stronger than ever, and these are exciting
intersections across disciplines, and we're thrilled it's happening here
at Virginia Tech. Thank you are forgetting it all
started. I'm sorry I'm repeating myself here, but
I I do want to thank our Conference Planning Committee
, the Continuing education program, and our faculty and
student volunteers are making this conference possible. I would
also like to especially say when we're driving the airport
several times. Where are you? That kind of
special for you and and again by the Doctor Husky
, co director of the 2014 g b t conference
. Hopefully director of the 2016 g b t conference
. Of course, our gender technology faculty member.
With her work in the body and culture, biomedicine
, gender variance and sexual difference, she's leading us
towards new ways of understanding the body and the ways
that technology, gender and notions the body intersect.
Magic Christine Mhm A conference The Department of Sociology,
the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention. The
College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. Women in
Leadership and Philanthropy Fund and the Provost Women and Minority
Artists and Scholars Lecture Series. We're honored that Dr
Martin is here with us tonight are provost and physical
chemist, and he's able to join us today to
say a few words. And we thank you,
sir, for being reporting from its inception. Very
special present. Yeah. Hey, what? We
have a purple robot especially made here at Virginia Tech
on one of our three d printer. The whole
thing. Thank you. A pleasure to welcome all
of you to this supposed these kinds of events.
Very exciting for me because one of the things Frank
promote my 13 years. Virginia Tech, yes,
is the concept of interdisciplinary research and education. Yeah
, advantages. Encouraging factor members, students, your
administrators to work across the traditional boundaries and to see
how interesting problems, interesting issues and bring to bear
on that talents that we find so many of our
different disciplines. We can't. It's exciting for family
members. And in fact, I think new factory
numbers to the junior factory members expect the world's worked
out. Really, we would not like it if
they're locked into certain very region series you can't escape
from. And programs like this research, information and
outreach to mention that really make university more interesting place
. I think I can make a contribution to how
society Before he we've been trying to watch things here
, too. Promoting this way, for example,
we have an institute for creativity Hearts. Mm mm
. We're very excited about this way. Encourage creative
creativity in all of this, but to take advantage
of contributions that parts can make, technology can make
and you think different kinds of things that are Parkinson
. We started to do with that. Yes.
And this community of technology, body gender, the
musical new experience. I'm not sure exactly what I
would expect. Maybe you don't know what to expect
. Yes. So connected to the Internet and all
the visuals that we have to deal with. Um
, he's very refineria robots taking over. Yeah.
We have to understand what this all needs premier person
. When I think about bodies. Gender, I
actually don't think Yeah, but But I've heard personal
experience this week. My under starter baby, this
week. Oh, yeah. Realizes what a magical
process that is women experienced. And then do not
the physiological changes take place. If you didn't mention
pretty amazing hope. I know that some people,
sure friends of to it makes me realize how different
we can be but how important they are to each
other. So, so much more sensitized to difficult
. Different how special we are. Yeah, hold
on. Learn how to celebrate. Yeah, skip
genders. It looked for what's unique and special at
the same time. Also, we're all humans,
and hopefully we can incorporate using technology into the technology
. The special features that into this discussion. So
anyway, welcome you your project. You may have
noticed there's an absolutely gorgeous day outside, so I'm
sorry. History. I hope you get Walk away
this while you get to experience some of the pleasures
we get day in and day out of being etcetera
special. Yeah, I hope that we can set
a standard for good work. High quality, Exciting
to my free stipulate these that help you advance your
own radiation. Normal agendas. They will come back
many times, so thank you. Welcome. Yeah
, all right. Hi. So I'm not gonna
say much. I'm just going to introduce Tarquino.
We're all really anxious to hear what she has to
say. We do have a few little activities to
engage in after her talking after her Q and A
. So please stick around. If you can find
out to use your tickets to quickly take around here
. I just want to say again. I'm thrilled
to see you all here. I think the only
thing that mitigates my enthusiasm is that be at every
single one of your papers. This morning I tried
pop into every room and see what was going on
. I read all of your abstracts I personally attached
to them all. I put you in little panels
and arranged you lovingly and sometimes frustrating. So um
, so just so grateful that you made a haul
out to Blacksburg against I hope we're going to have
some great conversations tonight and tomorrow. I think a
lot of great ones have already had. So without
further ado, I'm going to introduce Tarquino and tell
you that five years ago, while I was waiting
for a ride in a coffee shop in Dallas,
I have read an article in The New Yorker about
empathic robots, robots that were being designed primarily in
the United States for use in healthcare and in rehabilitative
settings. Robots that might not only substitute for a
health care worker, family member or other companions.
But they might also enhance the rehabilitative or even personalized
attention that any of these human actors might be able
to bestow on. A sick or injured person was
so captivated by the article for all kinds of reasons
, maybe we'll have conversations about later, and by
the idea that I might feel to Sunday conduct fieldwork
with either the designers of the consumers of these beings
that I Googled immediately went home and Googled anthropologist robots
and so I can find out speaking these issues,
I think, for reasons that are about to become
very clear. It was Dr Jennifer Robertson's name that
my early searches most consistently returned. Dr. Robinson
, who's a professor of anthropology and history of art
Michigan, has been researching the social, political and
gender context of humanoid robots in Japan for well over
a decade, with scholarly articles about this work appearing
in such journalist body of society, critical Asian studies
and theory, culture and society. This is in
addition to numerous book chapters and various other forms of
print and electronic media podcast their views. Those several
of these titles highlight the beliefs and processes through.
Can our gender, often female and you'll hear more
about shortly? It's important to note that Dr Robinson's
analyses elegantly demonstrate the intersectional nature of gender identities the
ways that gender is always implicated within existing and emerging
hierarchies and systems of meaning. In the case of
Japan, as you will make clear, expectations related
to the labor and leisure of domestic life, are
always entangled with ideas, composition, public and private
spheres. Importantly, Dr Robinson's insights about social and
humanoid robots are based on over three decades worth of
ethnographic research in Japan. Indeed, her work on
robots is just one dimension. We even have body
over 30 patient area. She's the author or editor
of at Least five account, literally doesn't the Journal
article chapters and she get as many prestigious fellowships and
grants, most recently John Assignment behind Memorial Foundation Fellowship
in 2000 12 and necessary See a fellowship in 20
. This larger body of work extends far beyond robots
and beyond technology studies proper. Dr Robinson has studied
and written about topics ranging from the 17th century to
the president, including nativists and social rectification movements.
Agrarian is, um, sex and gender systems and
ideologies. Massive popular culture, nostalgia, internationalization,
urban place of Japan and anthropology, sexuality and suicide
. Theater and performance voted. Are you really eugenics
? Bioethics? Jennifer is also the originator and general
editor of the journal Colonialism. Her work has been
translated into five languages, including Hebrew, Japanese and
Finish, and she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in
anthropology on non Western colonialism, bio art, image
defeat and politics practices. Yeah, cultures, jeans
, genealogies and identities, ethnic diversity in Japan,
sex, gender and sexuality and jack insurance. But
we didn't meet in person until last evening. I
think I can also say that it's a wonderfully warm
, engaged in generous scholar. Her talk, robo
sexism and retro robotics invites us all to consider the
roles played by gender and nationalism as well as cultural
ideas about the family in the design and production of
humanoid and artificially intelligent companion. I'm thrilled that she
agreed to join us here. GPT and I invite
you all to join me. Mhm. Uh huh
. Mhm. Uh huh. I'm going to be
singing today. Sorry. Mhm. Okay, Uh
, thank you very much, Professor Lebowski. Uh
, and thank you very much for your overly generous
introduction and also for inviting me to present this talk
today and to be part of this ambitious, interdisciplinary
and thoroughly enlightening conference. I don't think I've ever
been to a conference quite like this. Uh,
and there are many other individuals to thank, but
a big thank you as well to miss Colleen Barton
, the program coordinator for her expert logistical help in
arranging my visit. And I'm meeting so many other
people to think, but I'll do that later.
I've been doing research on Japanese service and personal robots
for about eight years or so and the changes in
the capabilities and appearance of these real robots over those
eight years are truly amazing, Of course, compared
to what robots and science fiction and novels and films
can do, Real tangible robots seem somewhat clumsy,
slow and even underwhelming. But that's another story I've
been mainly interested in looking critically at two aspects of
robot research and development in Japan. One concerns the
type of society in which robots and humans are imagined
to coexist, and the other concerns the types of
robots with which humans will share their living and working
places. As you may have already gathered from my
title Robot Sexism and Retro Robotics, I'm going to
be arguing that the most advanced robotic technology is being
deployed by a repertory of agents and agencies to reproduce
and to reinforce a pernicious Lee conservative on progressive and
chauvinist status quo. Uh, and I think my
comments, in general argument augment papers I've heard today
that emphasize how technology cannot be libera torrey or cannot
be assumed to be. Laboratory technology, of course
, can free, but it can also enslave technology
, including robotics, are not value neutral and are
infused with particular values that transcend issues of usefulness and
convenience. And in the case of robotics, we're
dealing with very, very sophisticated and expensive machines.
And so what I'm going to be showing you today
are images of machines that are extraordinarily costly. And
this is why there is so much government and corporate
funding involved. And this explains part of the reason
for this recapitulation and reinforcement of the status quo.
So what I'm going to be doing, in a
sense, is telling the unofficial story of the official
story of robots in Japan the sort of the back
story that's part of the official story. I'd like
to begin by showing you this image. It's the
cover of the January 2000 and 14 issue of the
Japanese Society of Artificial Intelligence. It's a watercolor illustration
of a female female robot with a cable connected to
her back. And when I first saw this,
I couldn't but help to think, of course,
of the cyborg female in the 1995 Ghost in the
Shell, which I'm sure many of you have seen
now. Her face, and especially her big eyes
resemble Japanese manga or cartoons. She's wearing a light
orange shirt dress white socks and green slippers, and
she's holding a book in her right hand and a
broom in her left. The housewife robot is in
a sunny book line room, standing between an open
window and a wicker veranda chair that one imagines is
occupied by a scholar, Perhaps an older man.
Something or someone has interrupted her reading. But why
is she a robot perusing a book in the first
place instead of sweeping the room? Now, before
reporting on responses to the cover, let me say
a few words about the Japanese Society of Artificial Intelligence
. Founded in 1986 the Js ai has a membership
of about 3000 people. The vast majority are men
. The editorial board felt that a change of cover
and you can see the previous issue here and all
previous issues actually had this very text txt sort of
appearance. They thought that a new cover might boost
membership, and so the J. S. A
. I posted an online call for cover illustrations.
100 entries were submitted, the winner was a female
illustrator and her image of a housewife robot was the
top choice of the 30 member Jessa editorial board,
which includes three women now. A note in the
January issue explaining the new cover design said that the
illustration represents a concept of quote artificial intelligence in everyday
life and carries a message that quote cleaning robots are
no exception to the integration of artificial intelligence in daily
life. While criticism was swift and there was a
spoof that was done of the cover, one critic
, God created this spoof cover male Robot to underscore
the sexism of the original. Now, by conflating
cleaning robots with housewives, the J. S.
A. I was rebuked for effectively reinforcing the status
quo, a sexual division of labor in which females
occupy domestic space and males public space. Moreover,
the illustration, regardless of the illustrators actual intentions,
also equates femaleness with housework and implies that book learning
is a counterproductive distraction for women. Well, days
later, the chief editor published an apology on behalf
of the editorial board on the Js Ai website,
J s website. He wrote. The front cover
design is not intended to discriminate against women. The
design gave room for the interpretation that women should clean
, but we deeply regret that as a public academic
group, we deeply regret that this matter was not
more carefully considered. End quote. Apparently, the
cover of the next issue, March 2014 reflected the
editorial boards. Careful consideration. Now the viewer is
positioned to occupy the housewife robots cybernetic gaze. We
see that she is reading Hagel's phenomenology of mind in
German, and we see the source of her distraction
. Her robotic eyes are focused on a young boy
, also a robot or the child she's babysitting.
Why died? He appears to be shouting and waving
to get her attention so absorbed as she with Hagel's
theory of self consciousness. In another part of his
apology for the January cover, the editor speaking for
the J. S. A editorial board, rationalized
that artificial intelligence is not an easy thing to depict
as it has no physical form and that the quote
appearance of any future robot that uses artificial intelligence to
perform everyday tasks is a difficult issue. And I
couldn't find the mayor issue it. It hasn't been
released yet. For some reason, I find his
justification for the cover totally facetious, for two main
reasons. First, there are plenty of robots equipped
with artificial intelligence currently in use including H R.
P. Four c who can dance and sing.
But you can't read Hagel yet. I have more
to say about her later on and in fact I'm
going to show you that j s A is covers
reflect and reinforce the taken for granted nature of sexual
and gender spatial division of human and robotic labour in
Japanese society have inside outside. Second, contrary to
the editors claims, artificial intelligence does indeed have physical
form. Japanese roboticists helped to pioneer the principle of
embodied intelligence or embodied cognition. Roboticists also point out
that intelligence cannot merely exist in the form of an
abstract algorithm but requires a physical form, a material
body and specifically a body that, like humans,
can be actively and continually in touch with its surroundings
. In human babies, cognitive processes originated motor sensory
experiences and are shaped as babies navigate their environment by
looking at touching, tasting, smelling, hearing and
listening to everything around them. Roboticists worked closely with
child development specialists and studying how dynamic interactions between a
robot and its environment can generate emergent autonomous behavior.
And here you see, he touches me, you
navigating a new office space, and they just equip
the robot with more software so that it can understand
it's environment better than before. Now there is considerable
debate among roboticists as to what embodiment entails. Should
robots be bipedal or quadra pedals or move about on
wheels? How should their bodies be proportioned? How
human like how female like or mail like should humanoid
robots be? There's also no consensus on which machines
qualify as robots. But generally speaking, a robot
is an autonomous or semi autonomous device that performs its
task according to direct human control to partial control with
human supervision or completely autonomously. A robot, then
, is an aggregation of different technologies such as sensors
, software, telecommunications tools, motors and batteries,
all of which make it capable of interacting with its
environment. Mm. I now want to turn to
the gender ring of real, tangible humanoid robots designed
to coexist and interact with human beings in the home
and workplace. And although I spelled this out in
other publications, I'm only going to gloss over right
now the fact that in Japan, robots are perceived
as living things and also as friendly and unthreatening.
This is in part to do with the animistic belief
system. It's a non monotheistic, non Abrahamic monotheistic
society, so there are no religious constraints on creating
robots. Roboticists are not accused of playing God,
as they often are in this country. In fact
, I'd like to say about Japan. There's no
God to play. Um, the Japanese do believe
that there's a vital essence or a vital force in
all things organic and inorganic. So robots are very
much part of the living universe. Now, the
majority of Japanese roboticists designing humanoids that will interact with
humans and everyday living in working environments proceed with an
idea of the gender of their creation in mind.
The cover of the Js ai journal that I showed
at the outset alludes to this most. That is
to say, 99% of Japanese roboticists are male,
but their sex per se is less relevant than the
fact that they are products of their upbringing and socialization
. And like the average person roboticists remain unconscious of
and take for granted their habitual everyday behavior, which
is quite resistant to change, and thus they reproduce
in their robots, stereotypic forms and activities that they
perceive in men and women in their environment. roboticists
may perceive female and male bodies as specific forms of
livability in the world, but they do not interrogate
them, as feminist scholars especially have done. Rather
, as I'm going to be discussing for their on
, they tend to uncritically reproduce and reinforce dominant stereotypes
or archetypes attached to male and female bodies. And
an anecdote from my field work is illustrative now.
Given the highly formalized, mind numbing and often robotic
nature of women's jobs such as Elevator Girl, it
would seem that robots could take their places. Yet
when I asked male roboticists why they did not urge
the replacement of elevator girls with humanoid robots, the
answer I received from Professor Takashi Lionel on the occasion
of my visit to his laboratory at Keio University was
typical. With a bemused look, he dismissed my
Western idea, noting that flesh and blood women supplied
an authentic aura of hospitality so crucial to ensuring customer
satisfaction. Now, I also need to note that
my nose, um, reference to Western on my
part in my experience over decades, working with Japanese
scholars is not an uncommon uh, is a not
uncommon, and it's a reactive way of avoiding uncomfortable
subjects. So using the same logic, one could
also dismiss science and robotics as Western and therefore somehow
not legitimate in Japan, and Japanese feminists have had
to refute similar charges for well over a century.
So let me shift gears at this juncture and put
gender robots and the gender ring of robots into a
broader social historical framework. Japan is home to over
half of the global share of the one million industrial
robots, and it leads in the creation and acceptance
of household robots that are being developed to care for
Children you see here and the growing number of senior
citizens. They are also being developed to provide companionship
and to perform domestic tasks by 2016, 2 years
from now, by which time each household is predicted
to own at least one robot the size of the
household robot market in Japan is expected to top nearly
20 million units. Why robots? Why now?
Faced with a rapidly aging and shrinking population and workforce
, Japanese politicians are continuing the Postwar precedent of pursuing
automation over replacement migration. Women are also being disregarded
as a talented and vital labor force, although the
prime minister claims he wants to change that. The
birth rate presently stands at about 1.3 Children per married
women and over 24% of the population of nearly 127
million people, which includes about 200 million legal foreign
residents, is over 65 years of age. As
I show in this picture, this is what the
government would love to see. But the demographic trends
of the opposite of this picture, the percentage of
elderly in Japan is expected to grow to over 40%
by 2050 and the latest estimates produced by the Health
Ministry, um, predicts that the population will shrink
to less than 111 million in 2035 into less than
90 million in 2000 and 55 now. Briefly,
women and men in Japan are postponing marriage until their
late twenties and even into their early thirties, and
some are issuing marriage altogether. And even married couples
are opting not to have Children. So the Japanese
government has been constantly revising, revising its demographic predictions
. Roboticists have been encouraged by the government and corporate
sector to address the three part problem of low birth
rate, aging society and diminishing labor force. But
where they are all calling for technological solutions robot caretakers
, robot babysitters, robot housekeepers, other groups are
calling for social and political solutions. For example,
the New Japan Women's Association has identified the nexus of
factors responsible for the low birthrate, and they've identified
that these factors have remained intact and unresolved things like
the shrinking family budget, the high cost of educating
Children, the dearth of public childcare facilities and after
school programs and, of course, excessively long working
hours and unpaid overtime work. Others have also noted
that Japanese women's refusal to marry or to marry very
late and the reluctance to have Children constitutes a form
of resistance or protest against the social system that continues
to regard women as second class citizens. And Japanese
men say that they postpone marriage because financially they can't
afford a family. Now, the premium, replaced
by the government on robotics as a techno utopian solution
to problems facing Japanese society today is clearly evident in
Innovation. 25 the central government's visionary blueprint for revitalizing
Japanese society and especially the household by 2025 revitalization is
glossed. Here is the robot ization of the household
in society. In February 2000 and seven, then
Minister Shinzo Abe unveiled Innovation 25 mm. The proposal
is accessible on the prime minister's website and a lot
of the images I'm showing you come from that website
. A newly coughed Abe looks a little like Ronald
Reagan here. I think was re elected prime minister
in December 2000 and 12 after serving as prime minister
for less than a year in his first attempt and
his plan to robot ties, Japan is back on
the fast track, although a succession of interim prime
ministers all supported innovation 25 it remained on the prime
minister's website in fact, maybe announced earlier this year
that his administration is prioritizing and bankrolling the development of
nursing and elder caregiving robots Nationwide. Surveys suggest that
Japanese citizens are more comfortable sharing working and living environments
with robots than with foreign helpers and caregivers and migrant
workers. Many seniors in particular, worry about the
stress of dealing with linguistic and cultural differences. Robots
are also imagined in animation 25 as the key to
resolving the trend among career minded Japanese women of delaying
or even entirely for going for going marriage and even
procreation. And how exactly are robots going to solve
these problems? Here you see robots leading exercises that
a senior citizens home, um stretching exercises and limbering
exercises now is illustrated Innovation 25. Prime Minister Abe
and his advisers believe that robot babysitters, housekeepers and
caregivers will relieve women from household chores and responsibilities,
making them more willing to get married and to have
more than 1.3 Children. And this is an image
from Innovation 25. You can see this multitasking pink
robot who's, um, giving a geometry lesson to
a child, nursing another child and doing the laundry
. And immediately after Innovation 25 was published, Toyota
, the motor company basically, which is also into
robotics, brought out a prototypical housewife robot who can
push a broom and put clothes in the washing machine
and carry dishes to the sink. Now, of
course, as you can see in this illustration from
innovation, 25 robot housewives may do all the work
, but married women are still wedded to the home
. Instead of going to an office like their husbands
, where they can socialize in person with their human
colleagues. The future women of Japan will telecommute to
work. And these images, by the way,
are from a fictional ethnography of the future Innovation family
in 2025. It's a fictional ethnography that is included
in the government's proposal for a robot ized society.
Fascinating reading and the fabricated last name of this particular
family is gonna be from the Japanese pronunciation of innovation
innovation. So, you know, by the end
of a family now, robots, in short,
reinforce the sexual and gender division of labor. In
space, Males occupy the public domains I've mentioned in
females the private or domestic domain. So gender complementarity
and not sexual equality is the retro tech message of
innovation. 25. Many of the robots, especially
humanoids developed in Japan over the past two decades,
are gendered, if somewhat ambiguously, to an untutored
eye rock. Cameroon, for example, is marketed
by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as a household ballet and babysitter
. It was assigned male gender by its makers,
although at first glance the yellow humanoid seems to be
wearing a petticoat. But this is actually a body
shape modeled after the U Roy or samurai armor and
also the huh comma the pleated skirt worn over a
man's kimono on formal occasions. And in fact,
Wacha Maru is named after the immortalized 12th century samurai
Minamoto No Yoshitsune, whose childhood name was Sushi Wakamatsu
. It's kind of over determined masculinity as I'll show
the agenda. Ring of Robots also draws from assumptions
about professions or tasks. For example, al Socks
Masculine Security Robot, which is one of nine in
operation in Japan today. Shopping malls Robot gender also
draws. Uh, professions are test, so the
security robot is masculine. Here it is, uh
, surveying a shopping mall in Tokyo. Robot gender
also draws on impressions informed by shape, scale,
color, function and even social linguistic conventions. The
all stock robot is big, bulky and dark blue
and, uh, Wacha Maru is referred on the
maker's website as well. Cameroon kun and kun is
a masculine izing suffix. Now let's look at some
other robot bodies by way of human bodies. There
are at least two kinds of human bodies the female
body and the male body. But that said,
female bodies and male bodies themselves are distinguished by a
great deal of biological variability, from outward appearance to
biochemical constitution to physical capabilities. But gender is not
simply a natural feature or characteristic of a given female
body or given male body the relationship between sex.
And I know that almost all of you here No
, this, uh, female male and gender femininity
. Masculinity is socially and culturally determined, standardized and
mediated. In Japan, past and present, the
relationship between sex and gender has been and remains quite
slippery. For example, femininity and masculinity have been
performed by both female and male bodies as epitomised by
the 400 year old Kabuki, all male Kabuki theater
and the all female Takarazuka Revue, founded in 1913
and both are mainstream theaters. These are not sort
of off the beaten track kinds of performances. Nevertheless
, both theaters continue to reproduce on stage not alternative
, much less subversive but dominant stereotypes of femininity and
masculinity, even if ideal femininity is performed by a
male in Kabuki and ideal masculinity by a female in
the Takarazuka Revue. In other words, the artifice
of the unity or coherence of sex and gender is
highlighted in both theaters, even as the actor's performances
reinforced on stage at least heteronormative itty and offstage as
I've written in several articles. Both theaters have contributed
to the formation of sexual subcultures. You have Kabuki
actors who performed as women on stage, living off
stage as women, in which case their gender identity
superseded there. Anatomical bodies. And in the case
of the Takarazuka Review, as I've written, uh
, there was spawned in the early 20th century,
a butch femme lesbian subcultural style in Japan. Now
, robot bodies are purposefully designed to fit a particular
task or role in society. And since these roles
are often gendered, a given robots body is equipped
with what I call cultural genitals. And this is
a term from Suzanne Kessler and Wendy McKenna's Um uh
huh, a book, The ethno methodology of gender
. Now, in contrast, human babies are separated
at birth into two categories. Female and male,
based on the appearance of their genitals. And if
that appearances indeterminant and intersects, the infant is often
surgically altered to fit neatly into a pink or blue
category. Of course, even the practice of determining
the proper female or male appearance of a given baby's
genitals is informed by gender ideology. But even if
you give an infant is surgically made to fit normative
definitions of corporeal femaleness or male nous. The madness
of a robot is arguably different, and this is
because a robot is a body type constructed from the
drawing board stage as a necessary condition of its gendered
social role. So I want to look at some
more robots to make this point clearer. Tom Otaka
Takahashi, leading robot designer and founder of Robo Garage
, predicts that over half of all future humanoids will
be female. In April 2000 and six, Takahashi
unveiled the bipedal ft for female type, his first
them. But up until that time, he explained
. And I quote, the great majority of robots
were either machine like male like or childlike for the
reasons that they are not only not only for the
reasons that not only are virtually all roboticist mail,
but also that fembots posed greater technical difficulties. Not
only did the servo motor and platform have to be
interior arised, but the body of the fembot needed
to be slender, which is very difficult undertaking,
and I end quote So technical difficulties aside, Takahashi
and my research suggests that he is quite representative of
Japanese robot Assistant General Takahashi invokes in no uncertain terms
, his common sense view that an attribution of female
gender requires an interior arised, slender body and male
gender and exterior arised, stocky body. In order
to feminized FT over and beyond her interior arised body
, Takahashi consulted with a number of professional fashion models
in developing an algorithm in enabling the 33 centimeter diva
but to perform a graceful catwalk with all the twists
and turns imposes of a supermodel. And she's even
wearing high heels and has her hands that are found
out to the side. Now, several years before
Ft's debut, Tatsuya Matsui, the founder of Flour
Robotics, created Posey and Pino, two humanoids that
typify the common sense, attributes. A female and
male gender of interiority and exterior authority, slender nous
and stock Penis. The bipedal Pino, who's pointy
nose recapitulates that of Pinocchio. His Italian namesake was
scaled to the size of a one year old child
, taking his first steps. It's about 75 centimeters
tall, According to Matsui, the scale of a
fully grown adult piano would really be a threatening presence
and would cause a lot of unease. In addition
to being cumbersome and overpowering, Pinots masculinity is suggested
through the incorporation of conventional ized masculinity markers such as
a squarish head and angular jaw, firm chin,
sturdy neck and straight shoulders. His visor changes colors
depending on his mood. Matsu claims that Pinos segmented
body was inspired by the life masculinity, a life
muscularity of male ballet dancers and echoing Takahashi's notion of
exterior arised masculinity. He left the boy bots internal
machinery visible to underscore his anatomy. Unlike piano,
who's segmented body is incomplete or unfinished Americans and Japanese
, Posey's veiled body imparts a sense of modesty and
innocence. Although he modeled Posey after a flower girl
at a church wedding, Matsui imagines her working in
the future as a receptionist. Posey's poses to almond
shaped and feminine eyes represent a technological breakthrough. Most
humanoids have visors or large eyes that accommodate a digital
camera within the head. Posey, symmetrical, human
like eyes required that to separate conjoined cameras had to
be installed like Hello, Kitty Posey lacks a mouth
, as does Pino. Her head, in the
form of a page boy haircut, sits atop her
willingly neck, and her puffy cheeks conjure the image
of a cherubic young girl, a sleeveless gossamer dress
simultaneously gives Posey and angelic appearance highlights her smooth,
anthropomorphic arms and hands and covers or interior rises,
the unfeminine network of wires and metal plates forming her
body. One of the newest humanoid robots is H
R P. Four c nickname meme. She was
unveiled in the spring of 2000 and nine by the
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. The
Japanese mitt, her shape and proportions are those of
the average Japanese human female. She's 100 and 58
centimeters tall about my height and weighs 43 kg,
including the battery. And she's actually 10 kg lighter
than the average Japanese woman. Her silicon face was
fashioned from a composite photograph of the five secretaries working
at Iced Uh huh. Her hands are also covered
in a silicon skin, but the rest of her
body consists of silver and black plastic molded to resemble
. And the state's me. To be honest,
Jane Fonda's Barbarella like costumes, which accents accentuates her
ample breasts and shapely, naturalistic buttocks. And I
have not yet received a good answer from roboticists as
to why, on earth a robot needs breasts and
a lifelike push, frankly not clear now H R
P Foresee or memes movements were part of an algorithm
developed by motion, capturing those of human females and
then mimicking them. Equipped with artificial intelligence. Her
interactions with humans have been abled have been enabled through
speech and gesture recognition. Mm debuted at a fashion
show held during the eighth Japanese Fashion Week in Tokyo
. This opened in 2000 and nine, and she's
modeling a wedding dress. So here the robot is
being used, somewhat ironically, to promote weddings for
marriage. Shy females. She's been recently shown to
cost play as the leading Japanese vocal, Lloyd Hudson
, a MCU and she also sidelines as a singer
dancer. And I'd like to show you a YouTube
clip at this point. Mm. And my slides
have not been advancing over here. Just one sick
. Do we have the technician in the room?
Yeah. Hopefully I can get the video to work
, even though it doesn't. Yeah, the screen
isn't unfortunately not duplicated. Let's see. Yeah,
that's it. Not a problem. Yeah. See
, I'm not getting I'm not getting what's up.
Very. I just realized. And I need to
show the video. Sorry, we can take a
station break. It's got to be duplicate. Okay
, Not so fast. Here we go. And
see that comes in. Yeah. Oh, I
don't want Yeah, this one here. Oh,
I don't want the stuff on the side showing them
. Just click this couple that. Okay, Great
. Okay. Thank you so much. There we
go. Yeah, right. Mhm. Mhm.
Yeah, yeah, They're going to die. So
yeah. Wow. Yeah. Bye. Okay.
Now. Yeah. Okay. Well, you said
it wasn't on deep litter. Oh, yeah.
Mhm. Okay, you get the idea, right
? It's quite amazing that she's not falling over.
I mean, really, she keeps her balance and
keeps time with the music and just phenomenal. And
she's the only robot, by the way up there
. So Okay, now welcome. ARU al sock
The security robot Ft Posey Pinot meme h r p
four c are all gender humanoid robots that approximate or
replicate the shape and proportions of the human body.
I'd like to look at humanoids now that are designed
, specifically designed to pass as actual humans. And
these are more precisely called Androids and guy noise.
And they're made to resemble specific human females or males
, and they're given standardized and stereotypically gendered features Ishiguro
Hiroshi. A robot assist at Osaka University is famous
worldwide for his Androids. Or he uses the term
gem in oId Gemma Noid h i, for his
initials, was created in 2000 and six as his
twin, through which he telepresence is his unique personhood
and authority and briefly distributed or telepresence. Personhood refers
to the ability of human actors to intentionally relocate some
of their agency and authority into things beyond the body
boundary. Uh, he hopes to use, uh
, gem annoyed H one, um, as a
substitute lecture so he can stay home and teaches lectures
. Uh, actually, I sent my gem annoyed
today. I'm busy in in Michigan right now.
Gem in oId H eyes, Silicon and steel body
was made from casts taken from Ishiguro's body, and
its hair was transplanted from Ishiguro's own head. The
android wears his makers unfashionable beige, uh, wow
shirt, dark trousers and black windbreaker jacket controlled by
a motion capture interface. Gem annoyed H. I
can imitate Ishiguro's singularly distinctive and subtle body and facial
movements, and it can reproduce Ishiguro's voice in synchronization
with its posture with his posture and movements. Now
, although Ishiguro has created only one android. He
has created several guy noise, beginning with his own
daughter here, which freaked her out, followed by
a double of newscaster Iacopo Fuji and then a series
of AC Troy aids. His latest guy, Noid
, is Gemma Noid F. F. S for
female. The the Human Models identity has been kept
confidential, but every time I look at the slide
, I think he looks like one of my students
actually at, um um, but G gem annoyed
F is his most realistic and sophisticated robot to date
. And as you'll see in the video clip that
I'm going to show you in a minute. Her
subtle, seemingly unconscious movements give gem in oId F
an eerie verisimilitude. You'll see the slight flutter of
her eyelids, the gentle, rising and falling of
her chest, which gives the appearance of breathing and
her constant, nearly imperceptible shifting so familiar to humans
. However, unlike H R. P four c
, she cannot walk. Recently, she's been tested
in hospitals as an intake nurse, and patients have
examined that the gem annoyed FC Natural smiling presence was
most reassuring. In 2010 gem in oId F was
cast in a play written by Hirata Orissa, one
of Japan's leading playwrights, in which he plays a
guy annoyed caregiver looking after the last remaining human on
earth who was suffering from terminal cancer. And Jim
annoyed F basically recites poetry to comfort her human subject
or her human patients. Now, earlier, I
pointed out that robots are designed with a specific gender
and profession or role in mind. But that doesn't
mean that their gender appearance is fixed and unalterable.
Following the example of Kabuki and Takarazuka Revue actors gem
in oId f has been given the opportunity to cross
dress. And I I want to show you a
video, and the roboticists gives a rationale as to
why he allowed her to to occupy a new subject
position. It just goes to show that cosmetics and
costume and style of speech are all, uh,
responsible for creating a gender appearance. So let me
show you it have to turn it up here,
too. Not that loud, is it? Minimize
it and change the what system. Oh, which
would be where I use a max. I'm not
Oh, this thing here. Yeah, thanks.
Yeah, because I turned it down earlier. Okay
, great. Thank you. All right, here
we go. I has developed a mobile version of
its android robot afterward, which was first shown to
the public. Lost you. These human like robots
imitate the movements of the people they are watching and
are currently being placed as observers in hospitals to see
how patients feel in their presence. Personal holiday.
He created that? Yeah. Mhm. You just
going to say this? Yeah. Structure three.
You're not. Can you stop? Actually, it
is a series of robots developed by cholera. These
robots have a very human like appearance and range of
motions, Yet they only have 12 degrees of freedom
, mostly in the face. This feature makes the
actual system much smaller and lighter than ordinary robot systems
. Now, by placing cameras in the redness of
the recoils, I still enabled the reports to direct
line of sight towards the subject. You don't of
course, Must see I can come down. And
many people. Thank you so much. So you
you don't feel any sort of money? Uh,
Just a question. Like, uh uh uh uh
uh uh. Uh huh, Uh huh. From
, as well as continuing the hospital trial, as
would like to see if this weapon could be helpful
in other ways. For example, talking with elderly
people to help prevent mental decline and improving communication skills
among Children with developmental disorders. Digging for news?
Yeah, so I'd like to move now to my
conclusion. It's more like a critical coda, actually
, and I have a blank slide for the minute
. Innovation 25 the Attendant Initiative to Robot Ties.
Everyday life was spurred by demographic problems facing Japanese society
, namely the looming population crisis caused by declining birth
rate, coupled with a rapidly aging society. How
will robots change these disturbing trends? Um, in
part the consequence of Japanese women's reluctance to marry and
to bear Children. As I noted, most roboticists
reinforce in and through their humanoids arguably un progressive notions
of gender dynamics and the sexual division of labor,
along with discriminatory attitudes toward non Japanese migrant workers.
In commentary relevant to robotics, critical theorist Manuela Rossini
notes that the inventors and scientific users of biomedical technologies
are also imagineers not just of bodies but of cultural
configurations and social arrangements as well. But the act
of imagining per se does not necessarily yield fresh or
progressive results. Innovation 25 the Japanese humanoid robot industry
exemplify retro tech or advanced technology in the service of
the status quo, or traditionalism, a vision of
and for new technologies that facilitate the transcendence of ethnocentrism
, paternalism and sexism and their associated power relations apparently
is shared neither by roboticists nor by the government committee
and planners responsible for innovation. 25. The demographic
data strongly indicate that the good wife wise mother ideal
of female sex and gender since the 18 nineties is
gradually being rejected by Japanese women who are not keen
to marry, much less have Children. The discourse
of citizens individual rights first guaranteed for women and men
in the post war or 1946 Constitution seems to be
morphing into a discourse of freedom to the freedom to
do whatever one desires or to not do whatever one
does not desire. It seems that this unprecedented exercise
of self interested agency, accompanied by a generalized social
antagonism towards migrant workers, has occasioned a social environment
in Japan, facilitating the robotics ization of work play
in home life. There are plenty of informative websites
and blogs devoted to robot related topics that also also
feature enthralled reports and sometimes sardonic commentaries on the latest
Japanese humanoids. But what has yet to be broached
among roboticists and policymakers is a serious and sweeping discussion
about the existential, ethical, humane and social and
interpersonal limits of safety, comfort and convenience associated with
the robotic lifestyle. Advocated Innovation 25 and hyped in
the mass and popular cultural media. It's fitting,
then, to close with the paradox involving freedom separate
from the freedom to, um, pursuits that gendered
humanoids are imagined to make possible for the Japanese people
. Robots themselves are designed on the basis of degrees
of freedom, and this expression refers to the motion
capabilities of robots. A simple robots, for example
, have three degrees of freedom. They can move
in three ways. Up and down, left and
right forwards and backwards. Mhm. Now, in
order to to appear more, uh, human like
or more humanoid like robots like Honda's. Asimo,
for example, has 34 degrees of freedom. And
there's, I think, a video tube of Obama
President Obama playing uh, soccer football with Asimo has
gone viral. Actually, apparently, Asimo President Obama
said that Osama was a little scary, but But
it was amazed by the technology. Now the silicon
faced H r P four C or meme, modeled
after the typical Japanese 20 something was equipped with,
uh, 42 degrees of freedom. However gem in
oId h I roboticist Ishiguro Hiroshi is body double has
50 degrees of freedom and he can't even walk.
Gemma noid F, in contrast, has only 12
degrees of freedom all in her face, as you
saw in the video. Now, if the Gemini
Roids degrees of freedom are considered allegorically, the implication
here is that the male has been equipped with more
degrees of freedom than the female. So the question
I'd like to leave you with is how many degrees
of freedom will flesh and blood women enjoy? And
the robot ties Japan of 2025. Thank you.
Mhm. Right? Yeah. So absolutely. Yeah
. There's a lot to talk about, obviously.
And a lot I couldn't put into this. Mhm
. Yes. Do you need a mic? Yeah
. Uh, thinking is also Yeah. What is
how this robotic simulation also plays? Have broader concern
about relations. Mhm. Um, yeah. If
there is, you know what? The forms of
intimacy facilitated by are whether they offer a certain kind
of solution to that problem or whether they interesting they
seem like mhm, right? Yeah, yeah.
In fact, they can do both. Now,
of course, robot assistant and the prime Minister's office
put a positive spin and feel that not only will
these, uh, robots and human rights in particular
relieve females, for example, you know of housekeeping
and elder care chores and then I induce them to
marry and and have even more Children. Um,
there are also thought to, um, provide,
uh, companionship to latch key kids, for example
, Or to, uh to young people who have
withdrawn from society there. In a somewhat related but
separate sort of application, many robots are being utilized
to work with learning disabled Children, especially individuals who
fall on that autism spectrum. Because the robots offer
consistent patterning, for example. And, uh,
apparently there's been some I suppose I'm not a sort
of a learning disability person, but have been many
successful kinds of experiments, not only in the United
States but in Japan and in Europe. Denmark,
especially, is experimenting with robots in a way that
is only paralleled by Japan And also, I should
say, South Korea, Um roboticists, um at
major universities are also putting out comic book versions of
the benefits that robotics can offer Japanese in their everyday
lives. And Waseda University, for example, has
a seven volume a comic book called The Book of
Wabbit and Robert Means Waseda Robot. Waseda is a
prestigious Japanese university, sort of like a Princeton or
one of the Ivies, and the idea is that
the robots can serve to mediate human relationships. Humans
who can talk to each other can talk to each
other through the robot and maybe eventually get together that
way. So I would say, for the most
part, a very positive spin is being put on
robots. Not only, uh, you know,
the direct sort of applications in everyday life, but
also the mediating kinds of possibilities that their imagined,
uh, to possess and contribute to about what level
of complexity do I need to start worrying about gender
? Actually, the greed three degrees of freedom robot
problem. Nice. Where along the development in Japan
, for example, do they start gender from the
very beginning? Basically, I mean, they have
the gender of the robot in mind based on the
application. They imagine it having whether or not it's
for amusement purposes or entertainment or caregiving or companionship.
They start with the gender of the robot in mind
. There are some gender neutral robots, and in
those cases, and in almost every case, it's
the customer. For example, buying a small cylindrical
childcare robot will gender that robot with a name or
by a particular color that's associated with a gender spectrum
. Yeah, it's interesting, because I University Michigan
, has a robotics department, and many of my
colleagues there say they don't even think about the gender
of their robots. But you know, that's a
little facetious. Because even if you look at DARPA's
recent robot challenge, for example, in Florida the
names of the robots are very telling Val Khoury,
for example, and forgotten another one. Invariably,
they are thinking of of application. An application equals
some sort of notion of the proper body, which
conjures up also a gender component. Yeah, yes
, things like, sure one is that very,
very Yeah, you hear anything robots. And I
wondered what your take on that was, uh,
and then family. Um, I'm interested in whether
you've been counted. Anybody, anything, Robotics.
And then, I guess maybe well on the what
? People seem to always run to the sex robot
, the gender robot, you know, and so
I don't Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah,
it's interesting. Um, I, uh a lot
of American robot assists and and scholars who who who
look at, um, and interpret robotics and technology
and society. I tend to be quite skeptical about
what's going on in Japan. And here I'm just
the messenger. I mean, the Japanese really embrace
caregiving robots. Um, no question about that.
But these robots don't necessarily have to take a humanoid
form. You can have already. There are robotic
bathtubs, for example. And, uh, in
another paper, I give on on caregiving robots.
I showed pictures of, you know, robotic,
uh, remote that can actually. You know,
once you do, your thing can analyze your you
know, stool, sample your urine sample and spit
out all that information. You know, to your
primary care physician, for example. Um, the
robot bathtub cannot take your pulse and, um,
also, you know, do a body scan.
Basically, So we have to think in rather broad
terms About what we mean by caregiving robots and whether
or not they take a humanoid form or not,
I think a lot of what the Japanese roboticists doing
are getting these robots humanoid forms to to make them
somehow embraceable as entities that will share, you know
, living in workspace. That said, You know
, it's, uh, I'm here. I'm going
to get into a little anthropology lesson. The Japanese
household is only on the surface. Is a nuclear
household actually a stem household, and you can have
one generation or one married couple per generation in the
extended form of that when it telescopes out. It's
very different from Chinese extended family household, which includes
every generation. And if you have, for example
, a couple has a child who, um,
is not all there intellectually. They'll adopt a child
, for example, to then serve as caretaker the
household. Because the Japanese household has to continue in
perpetuity somewhat like the House of Windsor, for example
, you can't end with that that you know the
end of the marriage of the death of the couple
, as many nuclear households do in the United States
. It has to be perpetuated. So if your
own Children are imbecilic. You just adopt Children very
flexible. In that way, theoretically, nothing is
preventing. Uh, a couple from adopting a robot
as a household successor because it can do the math
better can compute better, for example, and there's
no religious prescription. Um, just like in Japan
, for example, you can you can marry anything
you want. Whether or not it's legally recorded as
a marriage is another thing. But there are many
individuals who are marrying their cyber idols, for example
, marrying a comic book character, you know,
marrying a favorite toy and whatnot. So I think
the relationship with machines and gadgets and this notion that
they're living things and that they can be embraced as
living things, um, is something that is often
hard for Americans, I think, to wrap their
heads around a lot of the critique of caregiving robots
and companion robots comes from this notion of human exceptionalism
. And you know this idea that we we must
be different because we're human and we can't possibly find
that kind of Solis so that kind of comfort in
a robot, But people can, um and I
think generation that's coming up right now, you know
, my nieces and nephews much more comfortable with technology
than you know, somebody my age, for example
, Um so I I think we're going to see
I would like to say if you want to see
what's gonna hit the fan in this country 25 years
from now, look at what's going on in Japan
. Uh, and I really think Japan is a
harbinger of of what's to come in terms of human
machine relationships. Now, in terms of, um
, sex robots, I often get asked, What's
the most radical thing you can do with a robot
? And people are thinking sex, sex. But
sex with gadgets is probably the oldest thing on the
planet. Basically, Um, and the most dangerous
thing you can do with the robot is to hack
into it, which is why these sophisticated robots do
not leave Japan. Um, they are grounded,
basically, And, uh, some of the smaller
childcare robots, which are kind of household surveillance robots
, basically, um, can be leased but not
purchased. Um, so you know, it's a
controlled industry. I mean, this is really valuable
copyrighted software. There is some talk. I have
a student working on Japanese sex workers. There is
some talk about deploying artificially intelligent sex robots because to
date, all they have to do is sort of
squeak a little bit. But artificially intelligent sex robots
, uh, could certainly be introduced as companions.
And it's thought, and this is coming from the
Prime Minister's Office alleviate STDs and the specter of of
, you know, HIV infection, for example.
So there's this sort of hygienic argument in favor of
introducing a sex worker. Robots. Thanks. Very
good. Just as a yes. Yeah, human
exceptionalism. I'm interested in the idea. Hold on
. The use of provides. Uh huh, Yeah
. Yeah. A couple of articles that I've read
actually talking. You said got to teach and two
Children on the autism spectrum. And I kind of
think about that. The idea of a robot teaching
empathy. But then I also contrast that kids that
that homey Elmo doll Yeah, yeah, beyond the
Omo doll. Because it's giving you the touch that
commercials are fascinating to me too. It is their
long nobody's there, brother. Hands the child.
Only the house. Mhm. Uh huh. But
I I wondered to talk a little bit about the
idea. See, and DDR ambivalence where that's going
and how you see empathic lots and fitting into mhm
. Well, you know, this ties into issues
of consciousness. Um, and the idea that to
be empathic, um, there has to be some
consciousness itself versus other, and then some kind of
identification with the other imagined relationship with the other.
And, you know, there's no gold standard on
what actually constitutes consciousness. Even now you have some
neuroscientists saying, Well, it's the compaction of,
uh, you know, micro tubules, tubules,
you know, that are becoming more turgid. And
that generates, you know, the synapses that can
Uh huh, you know, enable or occasion consciousness
. Um, and others, of course, would
like to argue the human exceptionalist, um, line
that only humans can have consciousness and don't actually pursue
that any further. It's taken for granted and left
self evident. There have been Japanese robot assists who
have, um, and I don't have the images
here. Have created a little robots little teeny,
tiny, prototypical robots that can recognize themselves and if
there's an identical robot, distinguish themselves from the identical
robots and it all has to do with memory,
so they have this memory and memories that have been
learned and stored can be processed more quickly. So
there's new information presented. It takes longer to process
, and that must be another. In a way
, maybe humans so operate the same way as well
. You think about people who have an amnesia or
lose their memories and can't place themselves or identify themselves
, um, in in a particular setting or or
or or remember individuals they grew up with, um
, and who were dear to them. So I'm
not, you know, it's, uh it's something
that is always, I think, going to be
contested so long as there's this Vitruvian man notion of
, you know, human exceptionalism. And I have
a wonderful picture of the Vitruvian robot, actually,
which is really quite an exceptional machine. But until
we figure out what we mean by consciousness and empathy
as opposed to a performance or something that we feel
is necessary for our roles or, um, or
that is, uh, you know, uh,
kind of embroidered artifice, I You know, I
I leave it open if if, if, uh
, certain Japanese. But also you know, kids
, uh, feel that they have an empathic relationship
, then they do have an empathic relationship. Yeah
, I to ask it you are conserved in this
target of his work. See, Orientalist case that
might strange two okay. Or would spare parts,
maybe etcetera We see in the U. S.
Yes. Yes, baby. Well agents, sex
toys scared and Syria mhm in terms of the Orientalist
gaze. No, I I don't agree. I'm
using all Japanese sources. I think it's the roboticists
, actually, who have a kind of a weird
Occidental ist gaze. And I don't I think it's
important that we understand that Japan is different. It's
not an Abrahamic monotheistic country. It is a country
that is typified by a very vital and a very
modern, even postmodern animism there. It's a country
where individuals feel that robots are living things. So
this is not part of creating an US and them
kind of, you know, stereotype. I'm very
much presenting, I think, the flavor of the
kind of debates and the kind of literature you encounter
in Japanese. And when a Japanese roboticist accuses me
of having a Western idea, he might as well
accuse many Japanese women who would rather be a nurse
than an elevator girl, for example. And so
here you have nurses and schoolteachers being substituted with robots
. But the elevator girls have to be flesh and
blood, right? This is not Orientalist. This
is pernicious kind of sexism within Japan. So I'm
pretty careful about that. And I think, you
know, many American audiences are not really familiar with
this level of of robotics and these kinds of applications
of robotics, and it seems really different. But
it is different because But if you went to Korea
, you'd probably find similar applications. And similar gender
appearance is given to robots and increasingly, in Denmark
as well. I think you're going to see what's
going to be coming down the pike in other places
. In terms of other software devices. I'm not
really, um, that up to speed on these
other sort of, um you know, cyber worlds
that are are not embodied in the same way as
robots. I mean, the robot literature is just
mushrooming, you know, even as I speak,
it's really it's, uh, kind of thankless to
do this kind of research, actually, because every
day something new is published online And, um,
you know, greater sophistication and, uh, more
amazing applications. Um, but I don't know about
the other. I can't answer the other aspect in
terms of their there is city. And I mean
, you have iPhones and in Japan, but I
I think that is, you know, the what
is that movie? Uh, that. What was
it? Uh, her. Was that the name
of it this called for? I think that would
be kind of par for the course in Japan.
Quite frankly. I mean, I, you know
, Yes. Hi. So I kind of want
to add at the beginning of your talk about the
role, that sort of the expense and the resources
that go into these robots kind of have, um
, in terms of this generally, members, I
wonder if you could talk a little bit more about
that, but also just this sort of, you
know, great. You know, when we think
about especially, like robots and anxiety around robots and
save the United States, a lot of that is
is very gender, but it's gender in this very
capitalist context. Right? Um, what I found
interesting here is a lot of this is based around
, say, like the idea of robots taking on
feminine labor, whereas now, in the United States
, when we think about our contemporary capitalist system here
, it's all about replacing the old, very typically
masculine blue collar types of jobs. And then the
US shunting man and other people into these so called
feminine were historically feminine. Uh, sort of jobs
say, like healthcare, like schooling. Exactly.
The kinds of right there is a very kind of
opposite, uh, sort of replacement going on.
And so I was wondering if you could talk about
just that general economic context that all of this seems
to be existing with. Yes, well, the
the certainly the Japanese were the first to really introduce
an industrial robots. And now virtually their entire manufacturing
base involves robots, certainly for the construction of cars
, for example, Um, in terms of,
um, you know, the some of these more
sophisticated robots there have been articles, and I don't
know if this is exactly relevant to your question,
uh, suggesting that the amount of money that goes
into robot development is not returned, you know,
by the market. And and there's another component to
this that, um, I left out of this
version of this paper. But a lot of these
robots are prototypes for developing spinoff industries, new vision
systems, for example, new materials. Um,
h R p four c, for example, um
has a special, uh, newly invented rubber soles
. Because when a bipedal robot walks, they generate
all kinds of static which can interfere with their brain
, their algorithms basically and throw them off. So
, um, and creating a humanoid is one of
the most technically challenging kinds of you know, things
to create, basically joints and actuators and artificial skin
, for example, in the eyes and all these
pneumatic kinds of motions. All of these are getting
moved or transferred into the automotive industry. For example
, the Japanese space industry. They want a moon
base that is inhabited not by humans, but by
robots. Uh, but also, as some of
you may be aware, the prime minister just gave
the green light for the Japanese to join 100% the
weapons economy. And a lot of as in the
United States, a lot of this robot R and
D is going into the creation of a race sophisticated
weapons systems which are incredibly lucrative, even though people
at the very tip top of the pyramid are the
ones who obviously enjoy, you know, the benefits
of that market. So unlike the United States,
where a lot of these robotic innovations are going on
in, you know, somewhat secret, if not
top secret even here at Virginia Tech military, you
know, programs, whether they're drones which are very
, very low AI robots, more remote control.
Um, and, uh, you know, and
then gradually, as they are being introduced for military
purposes, introduced to the civilian population for television was
that way, For example, in Japan, Um
, these same these roboticists who are also working on
weapons systems go to robot expose, and they watch
how you know civilians are interacting with robots and they're
taking their good anthropologists there taking notes, and then
they translate those into, you know, design features
. Basically that then get fed into non civilian use
. Um uh, robots. So the Japanese are
kind of brilliant and using the general public basically,
uh, as the proving ground for their robots.
And you'll find that design wise, they're much more
sophisticated than their American counterparts. There are these Japanese
robo skeleton exoskeletons, for example that are extremely sleek
and you sort of want to put one on,
um, and model in it, Uh, and
the the ones that are being developed by the university
mission of these clunky. They look like bird cages
, you know, attached to your body, clunky
and heavy. And, um and they're not interested
in feedback from the general public or or finding out
what people could imagine themselves wearing or communing with or
cohabiting with. Um, So, uh, you
know, I think if Americans started to do that
, you might see a different relationship with robots developing
as well here. Sure. So Oh, but
one of the things that it is that's usually straight
describe reminded me of peace. That's all. Student
of mine. Weeks ago. About studies. Yeah
. Mhm. Yes, I one. All right
, But I'm struck. That's been related. Give
me sort of virtuosity. Crowd mhm, Mhm way
. That that's right. Perfection created yes, right
from. And that hasn't so so interested in sort
of what's going on. Aesthetic. Eric. Yeah
, yeah, part of this. And perhaps there
may be some. These what? Fine. You're
describing? Uh huh. Yes. But uh huh
. Uh huh. Victim model policy. Luke.
So where there is this sort of virtuosic, mhm
person, right? Is there a relation this relation
? Sort of artificial Mhm. Yeah. Yeah,
I I think that you know, the 22 separate
the natural, and the artificial is probably artificial,
basically because I think they're collapsed. Um, certainly
. And if you think about aesthetics of performance in
everyday life, you know, learning the proper rich
of the proper handshake for, for example, the
proper syntax, the proper level of politeness and Japanese
society is perhaps more sensitive to those kinds of nuanced
levels or nuanced differences than maybe American society. So
a lot of language, a lot of interaction,
even the degree of your bow is highly ritualized and
highly contextualized. And so there's an aesthetics of this
kind of artifice. But humans engage in artifice as
well. Behavioral artifices. And you know, if
you think about, um, you know, cross
cultural relationships and and communication and all of us know
that it's not a simple translations. I just,
uh you know, a one word kind of,
you know, operation. It's a whole context and
there's a whole history. And so these many of
these robots are being designed, at least in Japan
to to recognize, you know, very subtle differences
in expression that's going on here as well, uh
, for surveillance and, you know, face recognition
, for example, personalized protection instead of password.
Uh, some kind of facial expression, your thumb
. Print your irises. But beyond that, um
, but, um, so a certain if you
think about if certain kinds of reactions or certain kinds
of interactions are ritualized and have expressions attached to them
, it's not too hard, relatively speaking, to
have a robot learn those, especially if it's a
companion robot and has gradually started to learn. You
know, your own particular, um, quirky behavioral
idiosyncrasies. So I think that the the aesthetics,
the artifice all become part of this naturalized, I
would say. And, you know, normalized kind
of relationship. And this is where empathy can fit
as well. I mean, if you are meeting
somebody, um, for the first time, who's
from a country you you know nothing about? And
you misinterpret a look. You know, you're unable
to respond in a way that, uh, they
would expect, for example, simplifying things here,
but but you might not be perceived as somebody who
is understanding or empathic And so I think empathy is
something that's learned. We learned how to read expressions
. We choose whether or not we want to respond
in kind. I don't I don't think it's It's
something that flows, you know, automatically. Um
, these are tricky things, but as Japanese are
about as to say, it's in building these increasingly
verisimilitude anus. You know, creatures. We learn
more about humans, too. It certainly made us
think about what consciousness is and what empathy is.
Mhm. Mm. So look this way. Thank
you so much for your talk. I have a
question. Actually, I was wondering if you could
speak to the regional. Where are they? Okay
, I was I thought, Yeah. So I'm
really struck at how? By how this is the
creation rather than outsourcing. Migrant. It speaks to
the creation flexible form of labor. Gender, workforce
. Right. But how? It's not leaving Japan
, So it's rooted in Japan. Um, so
I'm wondering if you could speak to this within the
context of Asian biotech, because I've got all my
calls and how this kind of represents this creation of
this new agent biotechnology that symbolizes national prestige and so
on and Also, you mentioned that South Korea seems
to be sort of paralleling for parallel to to the
robotics in Japan. And I couldn't help but think
about the relationship with Japan and South Korea as far
as make up. So I'm wondering if you could
speak to that a little bit. Yeah, you're
all familiar with the fact that Japan was never colonized
, but, as I like to say, was
an anti colonial colonizer. Uh, and it it
confounds, you know, the East, West,
North South, binary division of colonized colonizer. So
that's a really important and certainly part of the relationship
. Um, that Japan now is negotiating with China
and Korea. Um, since unlike in Germany,
where, you know, in the schools and textbooks
openly discussed the Third Reich, Um, in Japan
, that has all been whitewashed. And it's really
a very elderly individual soldiers who are writing their personal
histories to clear their consciences before they die. Um
, and could the prime ministers and many politicians in
Japan are constantly making gaffes about, you know,
the comfort women system never existed or Japanese imperialism was
good for Asia. Um, that said, um
, the southernmost island of the four large islands of
Japan. Kyushu has probably one of the biggest trade
surpluses with Korea. And so they're very, um
uh, you know, mutually beneficial relationships as well
. I mean, the two, you know,
the President, Park and President, Prime Minister Abe
rhetorically sort of facing off. But underneath that there's
a lot of collaboration going on, um, and
similarly China as well, that the Chinese state often
uses anti Japanese sentiment, um, to, as
a way to, uh, as a safety valve
sort of function within China to let off steam directed
toward the Japanese rather than toward, um, the
regime, uh, in the People's Republic. So
it's very complicated, so I wouldn't want to,
you know, create a black or white picture.
A lot of Japanese companies are outsourced in China,
for example, and increasingly, in Southeast Asia.
I think what is interesting is that it's the sophisticated
robots that don't leave Japan. Pino, for example
, Pinocchio robot is an open source robot like the
South Korean Hugh Bow, and that embodied intelligence image
I had that was a huge A that was a
South Korean robot. South Korea faces the same demographics
as Japan. So does Italy And in fact,
Japanese robotics companies have formed consortia with their Italian counterparts
. One is in Pisa and one is in Genoa
, and they're creating robots, street cleaners for certain
northern towns in Italy where the roads are really wind
e. And so there's a, uh, forgot
the name of the place Bergamo. Maybe, Um
where, uh, you know, Luigi, uh
, sort of runs up and down the streets and
people put their recycling and their trash and you know
, Bongiorno, and you know, the robot has
become part of the community. So it's not just
Japan, we're just not aware of it. But
I think if we start reading, you know,
using the Internet to look at more than USA Today
or our CNN, which is what most of my
students look at when they get on the Internet and
search for news. If you start looking at,
you know, Italian newspapers in Singapore, Ian newspapers
and Malaysian newspaper, you're going to find a lot
more articles about robots and, um, you know
, uh, interregional applications. Now the so there
are these collaborations that said, I think one solution
to the the diminished diminished labor force in Japan and
also the falling birth rate. Uh, and it's
one that has been offered by many former immigration officers
who've written books on this, uh, demographic sort
of future of Japan. They say. Well,
you know, at the height of our empire in
1942 we only had a population of 70 million people
, and now we have 127 million, and we're
worried that it's going to fall to 90. So
they're suggesting that if you do have robots, not
just humanoids, but if you robot ties houses.
If you robot ties, um, you know cars
. If you robot ties office buildings, you can
actually decrease. The population can fall and create a
technologically gated society. Japan has never been an immigrant
friendly society and accepts, you know, a handful
of refugees every decade or so. So this would
, um, you know, perpetuate the mythos of
, um, a sort of a one ethnic nation
that the current conservative government likes to perpetuate, um
, but also make it actually feasible in the future
. And of course, you have two million Japanese
residents of foreign nationality and particularly Koreans, many of
whom whose families go back generations and also Chinese.
They're feeling the heat now, Um and so I
think this technologically closed society is something that is that
we need to be aware of. And I think
many Japanese who are worried about these future trends are
becoming a little bit concerned about because it recapitulates,
um, the close Society of Japan from roughly 1600
to 18. 70 basically. Only now it's going
to be technologically gated. Anyway. Little Japanese history
there. Thank you for your question. Sure.
Thank you very much for your life. This one
. Thank you. Yes, Exchange earlier. Yeah
. I just want to make clarifying question. Oh
, one of the things that occurred to me.
It's very strange it as far. Yes, you
can. He sort of difficulty mhm panic. What's
with this? Not Yeah. Mhm dexterity. Picture
to stick lot. Not mhm. So this spirit
interesting thing that right. 16 robots, successful disabled
students or autistic students And I was also wondering because
I was here. Point me in Japan? Yes
. Evaluated by artistic adults and to see yes.
Well, openness. You can stay robotics Researchers were
very interested, but whether it is huh himself Mhm
. Yes. I actually haven't done my own ethnographic
research on, um, the use of robots in
working with individuals who fall on that autistic spectrum.
However, one of my graduate students who just defended
her dissertation wrote on learning disabilities in Japan, and
they're called Hot Show Guy are emergent disabilities and learning
disabilities are only recently recognized in the past 10,
maybe even 20 years in Japan as really real things
. Before it was thought. That student is lazy
, for example, or has had inadequate upbringing and
socialization. And, you know, we're just sort
of disappeared basically. But now it primarily mothers have
read a lot of the American literature, primarily American
literature, on learning disabilities, and have created a
rather huge movement in Japan to have learning disabilities and
autism, autism spectrum disorders recognized as bona fide a
disabilities. And to be, um, you know
, treated and accordingly, and to be viewed in
in a constructive light and not simply have individuals who
disabled sort of just swept under the tatami mats,
so to speak. And one of the chapters in
My Student's dissertation is on her, um, ethnography
at the Robotics lab of Man. I can't remember
his first name or his last name is Kojima.
He has many publications in English, on working with
learning disabled kids and robots. And his work certainly
puts a very positive valence on this emergent therapeutic approach
. Uh huh. So that's pretty much all I
can say about, you know, But I know
that in the States and all of the world,
actually, um, you know, robots are being
introduced to work with individuals who have had some issues
with communication, for example and interaction. Oh,
can I just say one more thing? One more
thing. I often get asked, but nobody asked
me here when 3. 11 and Japan happened the
trifle disaster, the tsunami, earthquake, tsunami and
then meltdown. People said, Well, where are
the robots? Why, why didn't they go in
? Um and I just wanted to underscore its come
up in the capitalism question. Robots are really expensive
, you know, and elderly day laborers are really
cheap and your it's finally coming out. I predicted
this, but it's finally coming out that all of
the cleanup work is being done in a very hazardous
conditions of Hiroshima by these elderly, dispensable humans.
And I think we have to keep this in mind
. This is one of the ethical issues I wanted
to raise at the end. Until robots are really
, really cheap. They're not going to be replacing
humans any day soon. But we have to be
aware of, uh, the the promises of the
robotics industry versus what can actually transpire on the ground
because of the expenses associated with robots. And so
these inexpensive day laborers have been doing all the dangerous
dirty work, and their lives are going to be
very short as a result. I just wanted to
be put that in because Prime Minister Abe, of
course, playing down the dangers of radiation and the
aftermath of Kashima Thank you. Thank you very much 1590 01:49:44.170 --> A:middle L:90% . Mhm.