In a time of increasing AI anxiety, could these little creatures be the ones to spread love?
As I hurried around a department store in Japan over winter break, I nearly, quite literally, ran into a small robotic creature. The robot wasn’t at all humanoid, rather resembling something that looked like a cartoon owl with big eyes and wing-like arms. The creature was part of a demonstration taking place outside a store full of these robots, all standing in neat rows except for the one zipping around the mall.
The Lovot (a portmanteau of the words love and robot) was unveiled in 2018 at the World Robot Summit by the company GrooveX and marketed to the public as a robot whose sole intention is to spread love. For around $5,000 CAD buyers can acquire their own Lovot, standing around 43 centimetres tall and three kilograms in weight to bring ‘love’ into their lives. According to GrooveX, the Lovot contains sensors throughout its body that encourage “skinship” or the feeling of “closeness between a mother and child.” Through this function, the Lovot is supposedly able to react to its owner’s touch in the same way that a child would react to their parent.
The features of the Lovot go far beyond being just a cuddly friend. Attached to its head is a black, knob-like protrusion that, upon closer examination, reveals itself to be a camera. The robot is intended to serve as a surveillance device and home safety tool, being able to recognise voices and people, strongly resembling the cyborg main character from the science-fiction novel, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. The Lovot utilises artificial intelligence to “observe” its surroundings to create real-time reactions to the occurrences around it that are not pre-programmed to further mimic sentience.
With the prevalence of AI and the debate surrounding its ramifications, talk of the profound positivity made possible by technology has seemed to diminish in conversations. The Lovot is meant to restore that faith and positivity, to create a robot purely for love. Culturally, the concept of a faithful robotic friend has been fairly common—R2-D2, Baymax, and Wall-E are good examples—but to create trust in technology in the average person has remained a feat, as most people remain wary of the possibilities of AI as of 2023. Cultural fear of AI and robots has also been a common trope in recent media, even just earlier this year with the concept of the “Uncanny Valley” trending on social media in reference to the fear of humanoid robots.
This wariness is growing increasingly common with rising AI anxiety, as people fear the effects of new technology on job security, academic integrity, and data privacy, among other concerns. Even the security camera atop the Lovot could be anxiety-inducing, knowing that your conversations and surroundings are being recorded and sent to and processed by a corporation. Most people are already aware and acknowledge that their phones and laptops are “listening” or “watching” for the purpose of generating specific advertising or for virtual assistance technology. As of 2023, the Lovots have begun to be introduced to senior centres as a part of a study in Vancouver to aid those suffering from dementia and adjusting to post-pandemic life. The results have yet to be confirmed, but there is hope that the Lovot machines may be a new way to provide a form of safe, widespread companionship.
