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Oct 1015 min read

Robots Among Us: From Sci-Fi Dreams to Everyday Reality

Updated: Oct 24


In this episode, we explore the rapid evolution of robots and their growing roles in our society. We introduce Moxie, a robot designed to help children develop social skills, and discuss Amazon's massive robot workforce, now 750,000 strong. Our conversation spans from sidewalk to sky as we examine autonomous delivery systems. We consider society's attitudes towards these developments and ponder how humans will adapt to increased robot interactions. Finally, we touch on the economic impacts and begin to contemplate the future of work. Join us as we navigate a complex world where what was once science fiction is now our daily reality.





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Episode Transcript:

Lana: Welcome to Signal Shift, by Horizon Shift Lab. We're your hosts, Lana Price, Raakhee Natha, and Sue Chi. Each episode, we explore the latest signals in technology, culture, and society, uncovering insights that will impact our daily lives in the future. Join us as we shift perspectives, explore possibilities, and delve into real changes in our world. Curious to learn more? Go to horizonshiftlab.com.


Lana: I'm Lana, and for today's episode of Signal Shift, we're diving into a topic straight out of science fiction, which is robots. 


So growing up, one of my favorite cartoons was watching reruns of the Jetsons. So this is actually, I didn't know this really, was created in the 1960s. And so the show predicted many of the technologies that we see today: jet packs, flying cars, moving sidewalks, and, of course, they had Rosey the Robot. 


So today, we're going to learn more about signals in the field, in the space of robots, and what this might mean for the potential roles of robots in our society. And so I'm going to turn it over and see who wants to go first.


Sue: This is Sue. I can segue from that, because you talked about the Jetsons. And I was actually starting this week's Signal Search, looking for what my first memories were of robots. And definitely, the Jetsons is one of them, but I was thinking of so many dolls and stuffed animals that had animatronic abilities. I was thinking of Teddy Ruxpin. I mean, this is definitely dating me, but Teddy Ruxpin was there. There were cartoons I loved, like Voltron, the big defender robot of the universe. And then there were TV shows, like Small Wonder, where there's VICI, the little robot, who poses as their family, as their daughter, and is best friends with the neighbor's child, and things like that. 


So I was thinking, for a long time, it's been no secret that kids really love robots, and it's just continued generation after generation. Like, now we've got Wall-E, you have Big Hero 6, and it continues.


And so I was just thinking, what is the future of robots as they're geared towards children? And so lo and behold, I found a robot called Moxie. It was actually launched a few years ago, but recently got a big generative AI upgrade, along with some other features that was presented at this year's CES conference. And among a lot of the things it does, it says it's really a social emotional development toy for children. 


And on their website, they talk about a lot of the research studies that they've done. And so far, they've seen anywhere between a 50% to 70% increase and improvement in social skills and behavior. And they said that the biggest changes were in communication, in social engagement, and emotional regulation.


So I thought that was really interesting. They also started testing it in pediatric wards to just see how it does with patient motivation and kind of engagement. And at least as it relates to the parents of the patients, they said 100% of them would recommend Moxie to a friend. And it's also been in some of the Reddit feeds around autism, especially for kids, that it's seeing some kind of impact for those kids as well. 


I wish I could show it to you. It's a really cute robot. So it reminds me a little bit of maybe EVE from Wall-E. It's just very curved and round with this big screen, with big eyes, and it's very friendly. And it's about a foot tall. And so you could place it on a table. You can place it anywhere lying down. They could have conversations with the kids.


And so it just got me thinking, what is the future for kids and robots? And many studies have shown it's anywhere from neutral to positive in terms of how much kids trust robots versus humans. And I was expecting to see a lot more alarm bells going off about Moxie, but I didn't find any as much as I thought anyway. And so it was really neutral to positive ratings about this thing. 

I mean, really the biggest, I think, criticism was just the price point of this robot for parents.


Anyway, so I was just thinking, yeah, this whole generative AI and robots in the future for kids will be so important. Maybe from them thinking about how these robots are actually maybe part of their friend group. These are just wild ideas, but they might see a community of robots in different roles. Whereas it's when they're kids, there might be a Moxie. There might be kind of a teacher robot that they just consider a teacher and not a teacher robot or things like that.


And I think surprisingly, parents really like Moxie because they just introduced a tutoring component to it where they've demoed how Moxie can help children through math problems, which I would think could be really helpful for a parent if you're trying to get through some of the math homework with your kids. 


So I'm really curious where the future will go for some of the robot relationships with kids and especially how kids will perceive robots in their lives in the future, how they talk about them.


Lana: That is incredible. I'm excited to debrief this because I feel like there's so many ways this could go. I'm curious, you mentioned the price point. Do you happen to know what it is?


Sue: I think that started out at like $1,500, and now it's about $800. And they said, as far as social robots go, it's a very low price point. And their goal, the CEO had an interview saying that their goal was to price it similar to an iPhone in order to get it to be more accessible to families.

Lana: Great. Great signal. What about you, Raakhee? What did you find?


[6:42]


Raakhee: Not about a specific robot, but about something that really shows the advent of robots and how quickly this is coming. And so you may have heard, or you may have seen some headlines around the fact that Amazon's robot workforce is now 750,000. Amazon has 750,000 robots working in its performance centers. And there's two specific ones that are really popular. And their names are: Digit and Sequoia. And Sequoia does a lot of the inventory management, order processing, and Digit is kind of like what they call a bipedal robot that moves empty boxes around and things like that. So these robots have really become critical in these mass processing centers.


And I have to admit, very recently, we've had Amazon delivery that's been super fast, like next morning fast. And we've had it before sometimes at some points. But I even said to my husband, I was like, this is really, really sped up. Like, how is this happening? And I wonder, I have no idea, but I wonder if there's some correlation there. 


But yeah, that's the amount of their workforce in terms of robots. At the same time, since 2021, their employee, their human workforce, of course, has dropped about 100,000. So they were, they employed 1.6 million at peak. And now it's 1.5 million. 


And so I think this was just, again, a very clear indicator of the realities of where robots are going to come into workforces. I imagine outside of Amazon, of course, things like automotive, so many industries, right? Anything that's retail, manufacturing, anything in a factory kind of thing. And I imagine the swoop will be big, whether it was the change in the gold mining era, the change in industrial era, whether it was the move from brick and mortar to digital. We've seen these waves. And I don't know whether we're in a wave, or we're going to feel the wave more in the next year or two. But the wave is coming, right? Or we're either in it already. So I think that's interesting. But I think a really true signal about the extent of which automation is coming.


And it kind of spoke strongly then to what's happening with the port strikers on the east and the Gulf Coast, because one of their big demands right now, right, is that, yeah, tell us, we're not going to lose our jobs by automation. So they can see what's happening around them, and they know their jobs are at risk, and they're trying to secure their futures. 


So yeah, I'm a big lover of robots. I want my robot companion. I love shows like, was it Sunny, right? The new one on Apple TV, I loved it. There was an older one called Humans, I think, or Human, with Gemma Chan. It was really, really good. And I can imagine having my robot companion, and that's all the glorious, rosy side of this, which does exist. But there is the reality of a transition that has to happen in our world. And I think there's a lot of questions around that.


And then, again, a little off the robots thing, but this links to previous discussions we've had, but the port strike that is on right now is going to very quickly in the next few weeks affect our supply of coffee, our supply of bananas, things we have spoken about a couple of weeks ago in a very real way. So yeah, let's see what to come, but the robot world is coming. How are we gonna go through this transition?


Lana: Wow, yeah, I didn't actually know about the Amazon, the extent and the scale of its robot workforce, and then what a really intriguing tie to current events with the port strike. So, ooh, we have a lot to discuss. 


[10:55]


I'll do a quick share about a signal. This was inspired by our trip to LA and Raakhee and I were walking down the sidewalk in Santa Monica and I saw a sidewalk delivery robot. And I hadn't seen one before. So I was like, what is this? And Raakhee's like, oh yeah, no, that's old news. Like those have been around. And it's true, I guess they have been around and especially on college campuses have had these for years.


And so even this, there is another more recent news item from this past week, which is a partnership between two robotic companies. So a drone delivery company, Wing, is doing a partnership, a pilot partnership with Serve, which is the sidewalk delivery company. So the sidewalks delivery and the drone delivery and they're making a partnership in Dallas. 


And so the idea is you can order your favorite burrito. The sidewalk robot will roll up to the restaurant to get it and then it'll drop it off to the drone pickup and the drone will take it the last piece. And so the drone will fly it to your doorstep and they can fly up to six miles. So they're aiming for a 30 minute delivery radius all across Dallas using purely automated services. So no human will be involved. I mean, except for, obviously the folks who are like preparing it, but the sidewalk robot to the drone does not require a person in between. So that is something that they're just starting. It's going to integrate with DoorDash and with Walmart and for easier customer ordering. And so this idea of self-driving and self-flying being combined into like an autonomous delivery system is, so it's something that they've, it's, I think the parent companies are Uber and Alphabet, which is like Alphabet is Google. And so, you know, there's not a lot of like details, like you don't know when, don't know, you know, any specifics about like which other, like which restaurants specifically might be partnering in it, but they have definitely announced their plans. And so this will be one to watch.


[13:53]


Lana: So it seems like, so we have broad coverage here, and maybe just to say like robots can serve, are already, right, in many different functioning roles -- from behind the scenes, like logistically, like what we're saying, Raakhee, to being in hospitals with children, to being delivery, sort of serving that delivery function. So we have a lot of different examples and a lot of things we could potentially talk about. 


And I was really intrigued by, you know, what our perceived attitude is towards it, because I think like Sue, you mentioned, like it goes from neutral to positive, right? For the Moxie and 100% endorsement by parents. And to me, that feels radically different than, you know, Raakhee, your example of the port strikers, right? Who are like really against, right? And see it as a threat. So on one side sees it as threat, and other side sees it as like an asset. 


You know, one of the selling points of the delivery robot system is they said, great news, you don't have to tip someone. So, you know, like will customers who get their burrito delivered to their door, are they gonna see that as a plus? Like, awesome, I saved a couple of bucks. I didn't have to interact with anyone. And I got it faster than if I was waiting for someone to drive here, Uber Eats, for example. So, you know, I think this, our attitudes towards it or it's interesting to think about too.


Raakhee: I'm sure we are all on different scales, but I think it's such a mix of both of those things because, you know, on the one hand, we all want the convenience. We all want the cost-savings. 

Like, I think one of the spaces where it will show up a lot more is probably gonna be restaurants, or especially fast food, because it's so easy to automate in the back end. And these are also the places that are calling out and saying, whoa, everything is too expensive, we have to pass it on to the customer, people are not eating out, it hurts the economy, you know, the circle goes round and round. And so, it's one of those spaces where I think it's gonna happen. It's probably maybe happening, and we don't know, but it's gonna happen, I think, pretty quickly and fast, where we’ll see the automation in restaurants. And yes, less of certain human skills being used.


And I think, I wonder if these two things are going to happen in society at the same time, that we will continue to still go to that restaurant, have that cheaper burrito now. And at the same time, I totally understand why that group of workers is also striking, because yeah, what does happen, where do they get their money? And it also speaks to the inequality of our system. And the systems issues we have at a deeper level about monetary value and how we make money. And this just amplifies it, but I think both things are true, or at least I think they will be for everyone on different scales, like it causes some issues, but there's no way we're not gonna move forward with the technology and the convenience, are we?


Sue: Yeah, that's true. And I think that goes to the importance of just consumer choice and consciousness of what your choices are and some consumer education. Cause yeah, like you're saying, Raakhee, for fast food, it probably makes a ton of sense. Then maybe you see their retail footprint shrink because then now you don't need tables, which means less of community, right? 

But I have to believe in the human spirit. And on the other hand, when you see that happening, there will be restaurants who cater for humans only, human interaction only, and people will pay for that experience because it's so fundamentally different from what everything else is gonna look like in the future. And so yeah, I guess to me, that question that is, how would you not get overwhelmed by all those kinds of choices you have to make and just think about, yeah, the type of experience you wanna have and exactly where you can go get it?


[18:27]


Lana: I'm curious about what, how our skills will either need to develop or where we might atrophy. Like, I guess I'm thinking specifically about the social and emotional capacities of the robot. You know, on one hand, it's sad that we, that there is that space. So we need additional social and emotional support that and the robot is filling that space. But I wonder if that means if we depend on them for that, will we get worse, you know, in terms of being able to communicate with each other and help each other meet needs for connection and social, emotional, you know, regulation and support and things like that? 


Or will we improve because now we're getting those, we're learning from the robots how to do it. And thus, we're also able to speak the language and communicate with each other better. So I'm wondering kind of about how our own, you know, we will evolve with the technology, right? We're gonna, we're very adaptable. So I just wonder in which direction we're gonna go. 

Whether it's, you know, like they say because of phones, like, you know, we're supposedly like we're not as good at making eye contact with each other because we're busy looking at our device, right? So I'm thinking about things like that.


Sue: Yeah, I had this crazy idea all of a sudden of a kid, you know, having a tea party with their stuffed animals, you know, and it requires a level of imagination of the child to interact with, you know, stuffed animals and what they say. And what if you have now a tea party with like five Moxies? You program them differently, but now there's almost like no imagination required because they're talking back to you. So on one hand, I wonder, yeah, there might be some skills that they're developing, but what are you losing in the meantime that you might have gained in a different way back in the old days?


Raakhee: Yeah, that's such a smart call-out, Sue, I mean, and it's, we already see that in the discussions around banning phones, right? And what phones are doing in social media, impacting, again, like brain activity, right? And what's happening with dopamine and what are we doing to young people and the depression that ensues from being on your phone too long and all those things. 


Like, I know France is trying to create these tiers of usage around phones, like between zero to two, I think two years, a baby shouldn't have access to a phone, two to this, then they can maybe see this, and they're testing and trialing a couple of things and banning social media at a certain age, and then at a certain age, you are allowed to access all these things.

So I wonder if the same thing needs to be thought about with robots as well, like how does it affect our development, our childhood development at different stages and when should we be introduced to it? 


[21:57]


And then I think about it, though, as adults, and when we older, I'm sure all of us are craving the same thing, which is please come and wash my dishes. Please come and clean my floors. It's doing that already, right? We have iRobots, but wash my dishes, do all the other stuff, cook my food, or do a lot more of my work, because I think it's still, for me in the utopia sense, I'm like, do they open up our lives more in the sense that if I get to sit at my desk less, which the truth is our sedentary lifestyle is one of the worst things about modern life, right? It's that we have to sit and do this to earn a living in that and, but can robots come in and maybe change that? So we can spend our days more relaxedly. We can move more, we can be outdoors more. Is there a positive side to having these robots in our lives as adults? I don't know.


Lana: Yeah, I'm hearing in what you're saying, I'm making a connection between what you're saying and some of the concepts of UBI, like Universal Basic Income, which is how people I think are making a connection between automation and loss of jobs and the potential need for a guaranteed income. 


And then, yeah, and then various issues, like arguments that are in support of or against UBI and the idea of having increased leisure, whether folks see that as a pro or as a con, as a desired outcome. So there's a lot of debate around that and obviously that's the topic in and of itself, but I can see the progression between what we're talking about to what do we want? You know, like what is our, like what is that utopia? What is that goal?


It's funny, I'll circle it back to the intro, is that the Jetsons was supposed to be utopia, right? And actually, I didn't know this, but George, who's the dad, worked one or two hours a day, two days a week. And the mom didn’t work. And so, which is funny because you see him, like with his briefcase, like get into the flying car. So it's a lot to commute to your job, you’re not working very long, but it's funny, right? So that's I think a great topic too, like what are we moving towards with all of this, right? What's the end state here?


So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you guys for a really fun discussion. It's a great one. It's real life, which is hard to believe. It's real life, it's happening now. And so it's always great to learn with you and to be in conversation with you. And thanks to everyone who's also engaging in this conversation. And we invite you to check out our website, horizonshiftlab.com, and please send us any messages if you enjoy the show, or if you have some feedback for us, we'd appreciate that too. So thanks so much, and we'll see you next week.


[25:34]

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