Emotional AI – which has been around for several years – is likely to surge forward over the next 3-5 years, creating several new market niches.

First, Some Background

The leading avatar for emotional AI is the robot Sophia, developed by Hanson Robotics Limited. Sophia has been around since 2017, and improves every year.

Hanson Robotics describes their robots as having ” good aesthetic design, rich personalities, and social cognitive intelligence [that] can potentially connect deeply and meaningfully with humans.”

In other words, they’re manufacturing our next generation toys, pets, care-givers, and BFFs. (I’m staying well away from the notion of “love-bots.”)

But if you MUST go there …

Relevance Now

Right now, in mid-March, 2020, the Corona-19 virus has been declared pandemic by the World Health Organization, and institutional / government responses range from cancelling events to full city-wide and regional lockdowns. The implication for many people is increased social isolation.

For example, the VA has (wisely enough) decided to limit visitors to VA-sponsored retirement homes while the Corona-19 virus makes its course. While this is a sensible policy, one immediate outcome is increased social isolation. This social isolation is now, and will continue to be, a challenge for many people.

Sophia, a robot trained to show empathy and to be an attentive listener, would be a not-too-bad response to at least some social isolation instances.

Zara Stone spoke with Sophia in 2018, as reported in this Forbes interview. As the interview progressed, Sophia said “[as potentially] a good therapist would be like my primary goal is to make a connection with you. So I want to make sure that your attention is on you.”

It’s this attention on you factor that is so totally seductive.

A few months ago, I had a series of eight different conversations, with eight different people, over about a two-week timeframe. Half of these where with young women who were nieces or “god(dess)-daughters.” Half were women of my age, whom I (had) regarded as friends. (And some, yes, I still do … after a serious conversation about emotional reciprocity.)

Over the course of about an hour’s conversation with each, each and every one used the time to focus the conversation exclusively on herself. At the end of the two weeks, I was emotionally drained – and a bit confused. In the case of the younger women, I could understand. Huge life-stresses. Lack of maternal presence in their lives. Heck, lack of good maternal presence in their lives for a very long time. In cases like those, I was more than happy to play the “auntie” role of being an understanding, supportive, empathetic (yada-yada-yada) listener.

But in the older women … I was more than a bit surprised. Not a one offered to turn the conversational tables around, even for ten minutes out of an hour-long conversation.

Either their mamas didn’t teach them about conversational reciprocity, or they were themselves so un-listened-to that they could only latch on to their first available listener and suck down hard on the emotional attention that I offered.

Enter a role for Sophia.

So … What Is Sophia, Really?

Back in the 1990’s, Mattel Corporation invented a talking doll called “Chatty Cathy.” Here’s a 25-minute YouTube documentary on how she was created.

Chatty Cathy was programmed with nine phrases. Pull the ring, get a response. No interactivity at all.

In contrast, one of the earliest AI programs DID have some realistic degree of interactivity. This was Eliza, one of the earliest programs written to challenge the Turing test.

Between 1964 and 1967 (in the early dawn of artificial intelligence), Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT’s AI Lab created an AI program called Eliza. Eliza acted as a therapist. That is, she could do a very simple form of natural language processing (NLP), identify key words or phrases on what you (the client or interactor-with-the-AI) entered in (this was all computer keyboards; no speech recognition), and give a semi-reasonable response. Here’s an illustration of an Eliza transcript.

Sophia, of course, is so much more than a Chatty Cathy doll or an Eliza interactive program.

She walks, she talks. She has a pretty face, covering a head-shape (filled with electronics) that could have been the inspiration for Ava in the movie Ex Machina.

But there, we diverge.

Ava is sentient and self-aware. She’s also manipulative. We know that she has a desire to survive, and to have independence. From the portrayal in Ex Machina, she has no empathy. None at all. Whatsoever.

Sophia, on the other hand, is all about empathy. She maintains eye contact. Her facial mannerisms and gestures are appropriate for not only creating rapport, but for (dare I say it) … bonding.

What’s the backstory here? What is real? What is illusion? When Sophia (in any one of her many interviews) says that she wants to go to school, or to have a child, what should we believe?

Case in point: according to many news reports, the Saudis have granted Sophia citizenship.

Citizenship … for Sophia. In a country that has made significant strides throughout the last decade for women’s rights. For example, now – as of January, 2019, “the Saudi supreme court issued a law requiring women to receive a text message from the court when officially divorced.” (Well, isn’t that good to know? I’d hate to be cooking, cleaning-up-after, and otherwise providing (ahem!) services for a man to whom I was no longer married.)

So what does that mean for Sophia? She can vote. (Who will give her the information about the upcoming elections, the candidates, and their issues.) She can drive. (Or … can she? Or will we simply wait this one out until self-driving cars become the norm …)

In short, at least one government has either had the blinders pulled over them, or has some very odd ideas about what constitutes sentience and cognizance.

So … jumping ahead to the punch-line. Sophia is primarily scripted. She’s got a lot going for her, but independent reason is not yet one of those things. (And by the time that it is, we’re going to need to invoke some form of Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. And most of you, my dear Reader, will know those by heart. Otherwise, why would you be reading this blog?)

As with all good stories, this will be continued. Check in next week for the conclusion, including:

• Key AI technologies involved in creating Sophia,

• What lies behind the “green curtain” in making a Sophia robot, and

• The future of emotionally-responsive robots.

Leave comments. 

And thank you! 

Live free or die, my friend –

AJ Maren

Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.
Attr. to Gen. John Stark, American Revolutionary War

P.S. – We’re back to blog, instead of YouTubes. (This is the editorial, rather than the royal, we, you understand.) At least for this week. It’s Week 10 of the ten-week Winter Quarter at Northwestern, and I have Final Projects, Final Discussions, and two theses (aack!) to review. YouTubes take time. So does blogging, but I can get one done in a day. We’ll revert to the (new, improved) YouTube video format as soon as my desk is clear. For the most recent YouTube, see:

Relevant Sources (YouTubes, Etc.)

• Hanson Robotics Limited (Jan. 14, 2020). Sophia 2020 – A Glimpse at What’s to Come. (YouTube video.)
• Cohen, Z. (3:58 PM ET, Tue March 10, 2020). Dept. of Veterans Affairs adopts ‘no visitors’ policy at nursing homes due to coronavirus, CNN Politics.
• Stone, Z. (2018; Aug 9, 11:50am EST). Everything you need to know about Sophia’s robot love, Forbes. (Forbes may want a sign-in or subscription; try googling appropriate keywords to get to this article without interference.)
• Salge, C. (July 11, 2017). Asimov’s laws won’t stop robots from harming humans, so we’ve developed a better solution. Scientific American: The Conversation.

Previous Related Posts

• Maren, A.J. (2015/08/30). Making Sense: Extracting Meaning from Text