The Problems With Pepper Robotics

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The robot Pepper was seen by the care staff as being kind of the most robot-y robot. It took a lot of work for pepper to learn how to read emotions, so in most commercial applications, that functionality was never used. Care workers found if they just wheeled pepper to the front, explain what pepper was to the residents, which they had to do on a daily basis, the residents wouldn't really do what pepper was telling them to do.

Paris Marx is joined by James Wright to discuss Japan’s efforts to develop robots to care for its growing elderly population, what the government hoped to achieve with that plan, and why it hasn’t worked out as planned.

James Wright is a research associate with Turning Institute and a visiting lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. He’s also the author of Robots Won’t Save Japan. You can follow James on Twitter at @jms_wright.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Paris is visiting New Zealand and doing a number of events through the latter half of March. Find all the dates and details here.
James wrote about Japan’s efforts to automate elder care for MIT Tech Review.
Jennifer Robertson spoke about the gendering of robots to cement conservative gender norms.

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