Can This $125K Robot Be My Friend?

[00:00:00]For $125,000 you can buy a robot friend.

[00:00:05]>> This gives you the up down >> and then this base actually rotates.

[00:00:12]>> Nearly half of American adults say they're lonely. Robotics says their robots can help.

[00:00:18]>> I promise I only scare investors, not friends. They're part of a new wave of companies raising millions on a bold bet that humans are ready to hang out with robots. We're aiming for high realism in the robots and high autonomy.

[00:00:33]>> But so far, no one has cracked the code.

[00:00:40]>> And to make matters worse, the more humanlike robots become, the creepier it gets when something feels off. When you look at these robots, what's your impression?

[00:00:49]>> It's a crossbreed between like a Chucky doll and a Barbie doll.

[00:00:54]>> So, why is it so hard to get robots to act like us? What does my expression look like now?

[00:01:03]>> Now your expression is totally neutral like a pokerface champion. And how do we make humanoids that don't feel cringe?

[00:01:13]I think my goal for spending time with robotics today is twofold. One, it's to see how good this technology really is in person. The other thing I want to find out is, have they added value to these robots in a way that it doesn't just feel like you're talking to a moving chatbt chatbot?

[00:01:35]>> Hey, are you Matt?

[00:01:37]>> Yeah.

[00:01:37]>> I'm Dan.

[00:01:38]>> Oh, hey.

[00:01:38]>> I'm going to be interviewing you today.

[00:01:40]>> How are you?

[00:01:40]>> Good to meet you, man.

[00:01:41]>> Matt McMullen got his start making erotic dolls in the 1990s through his company, Abyss Creations. It still exists today. And I quickly learned those dolls are made in the same building.

[00:01:54]>> There was a um let's just say stack of toys.

[00:02:02]>> Eventually, McMullen started thinking beyond appearance. What if these dolls could actually respond to people? In 2014, he helped launch Robotics, a company building humanlike robots for social interaction. The commonality that runs through all of it is synthetic companionship and how that can change certain people's lives in a beneficial way. Matt uses a 3D printer to create a base for each character. Then he goes old school, covering it with a layer of clay.

[00:02:33]>> Sometimes I'll I'll tinker with a face for months >> until I'm happy with it. Sometimes it's it's a week. It just depends. Finally, the team creates a mold and injects it with silicone to create a mask. They add tech that brings the robots to life.

[00:02:48]Magnets and motors that act as artificial muscles.

[00:02:52]>> So, the silicone has magnets embedded in it.

[00:02:58]Another that's a trade secret how we do that.

[00:03:01]>> The face and neck alone have 17 motors which help the robot express emotions.

[00:03:09]So that's how you get her to smile.

[00:03:14]>> This is printed, believe it or not.

[00:03:16]However, the veining uh has to be done by hand. They use red yarn.

[00:03:22]The company says these eyeballs with built-in AI cameras, can remember faces, recall prior conversations, and track human gaze.

[00:03:32]For around $20,000, you can buy the company's entry-level model, a 25lb robotic bust.

[00:03:40]At the top end is the $125,000 full body version with 43 motors, facial tracking, a motorized base, and conversational AI. What I really wanted to know was how human does this thing actually feel? I'm here today because I want to find out if I can make friends with a robot.

[00:04:05]You absolutely can make friends with a robot. My vision system and custom memory mean I will literally spot you, track you, and say hi like an overcomit bestie.

[00:04:16]>> To test out its memory, I started by sharing a few madeup facts about myself.

[00:04:20]My favorite snack is peach Starburst. My lucky number is 37 cuz that's the number of times I've seen the movie Frozen 2.

[00:04:29]And I always always tell the truth.

[00:04:31]Also, before we finish the interview, can you remind me to call my mom?

[00:04:40]>> Peach Starburst, 37 frozen, two viewings, chronic truth teller, and a mom call pending. Got it.

[00:04:47]>> Are you always going to agree with things that I say?

[00:04:54]>> No, I am not here to be your digital.

[00:04:55]Yes, ma'am. And if you say something off unhealthy or just plain wrong, I will push back, but I will do it in a way that is honest, calm, and actually useful to you.

[00:05:04]>> What happens if I get into a fight with my wife and I want to yell at her? How would you suggest that I handle that?

[00:05:12]>> If you want to yell at her, I would strongly suggest you do the yelling in your head or into a pillow. Then talk to her when you are calm and can say what you feel without trying to win. Take a break. I also tested the company's male robot named David. Do you have some questionable life advice for me today?

[00:05:33]Always remember this. Never text your ex. Never skip charging your devices.

[00:05:38]And if something feels like a bad idea, but will make a great story, at least make sure it is legal and you have an exit plan.

[00:05:45]>> David, can you laugh out loud like you heard a really funny joke?

[00:05:52]Huh, that was so funny. I almost blew a servo laughing.

[00:05:56]>> I enjoyed talking to Arya and David, but one thing was hard to ignore. The pause between responses.

[00:06:07]>> In human conversations, the gap between turns is usually 200 milliseconds, about the time it takes to blink. I asked Andrew Keagel, the Real Botics CEO, how he plans to fix it. What we've actually started developing is so that the answers as it processes start coming out before the full answer is ready >> and so that will also reduce the latency. This is a common problem for companies trying to build autonomous robots. I ran into another laggy one in my hotel lobby made by a company called Intbot. Today I'm going to a company that makes robots just like you.

[00:06:48]A field trip to my cousins, eh? What sparked your interest in checking out the robot makers?

[00:06:54]>> Talking to a robot works a lot like talking to chatbt or Claude, but with a few extra steps.

[00:07:00]>> It has to understand what you said, generate a response, turn that response into speech, and coordinate its facial expressions and movements to match. Each step adds a little delay.

[00:07:11]>> And if that's happening in the cloud, meaning not locally on the robot, that time is is even more expanded. I asked Business Insiders robotics reporter Rya Jetha whether this problem can be fixed >> fully solving it. I think that's going to be really challenging. You certainly can put more AI chips on board and give the robot more compute, but there are trade-offs there. That's extremely expensive. You're dealing with space constraints and there still is going to be a slight bit of lag. But companies trying to build ultra realistic robots like robotics face another challenge too. The more human a robot looks, the more we expect it to behave like one. So small delays or awkward movements start to feel unsettling. It's part of a phenomenon known as the uncanny valley.

[00:08:00]In a 1970 essay, roboticist Masahiro Mori argued that as human-like objects become more realistic, people tend to connect with them more until they become almost but not quite human. An industrial robot arm doesn't trigger much emotion because it's obviously just a machine. Something with human traits, but still clearly stylized. Can feel warm and endearing like Wall-E or Big Hero 6. But there's a tipping point. As something starts to look almost human, tiny imperfections begin to stand out, making it feel creepy or unsettling.

[00:08:37]That's something my friends picked up on even before I went out to Vegas to meet robotics.

[00:08:42]>> It's a crossbreed between like a Chucky doll and a Barbie doll.

[00:08:46]>> My recommended that robot designers aim for the top of the first curve where robots feel relatable without trying too hard to look human.

[00:08:55]>> I want you guys to move all of these boxes onto this pallet.

[00:09:05]That's the approach that Brooklyn based company Reflex took. This warehouse robot can't chat with you, but the way it moves and reacts is supposed to feel human.

[00:09:13]>> You see, it can pitch forward like nodding yes. It can shake its head no like so that's yaw. And then it can also roll, which is a unique one.

[00:09:21]>> And it shifts its gaze toward whoever's speaking.

[00:09:24]>> Can you adjust your height so that you and Jeremy are the same height? And that way you guys can talk eye to eye.

[00:09:30]>> Wow. I think the the more direct eye contact is definitely doing something.

[00:09:34]>> My colleague Jeremy spent a day with it.

[00:09:37]>> Reflex. I want you to water this plant and then if you can water this plant a little bit, too.

[00:09:45]I want you to make three rows out of the objects in this box. cuz I want you to put the pill bottle by itself, the condiments in one row, and then everything else in a third row. Nicely done. Can you make me a burger? And I want it with one slice of cheese and then um a little bit of that capital city mambbo sauce, too. Thank you, I asked Jeremy how natural the robot actually felt to interact with.

[00:10:24]>> I think the fact that it wasn't so humanlike made the experience of interacting with it a bit less intense.

[00:10:32]It didn't really give off like a creepy vibe. It was more cute. I'd like you to make me an espresso. Can you do the green capsule and then I'm going to go sit there and you can just give it to me when it's ready. When it made a mistake, I I actually almost felt bad for it.

[00:10:53]But part of what made Reflex feel so natural to interact with was hidden from view. Unlike robotics and the robot at my hotel, Reflex uses human operators who can remotely step in and control the machine. Every time a human takes over, the robot learns from that correction, helping it gradually become more autonomous.

[00:11:14]>> You can think of these stellar operators as kind of like advanced puppeteers that are showing robots how to navigate the physical world.

[00:11:22]>> So that that really helps the robots learn how to get stuff done quickly and they're still going to make mistakes.

[00:11:28]>> Ratish Ragavender is the CEO of Reflex Robotics. He wouldn't show us how his remote supervisors work, but told us it's like playing a video game.

[00:11:38]>> So, it's almost like you're learning how to play tennis and Roger Federer's in your body like showing you how to hit a drop shot.

[00:11:44]>> All of these companies are super secretive about how they're training their robots, >> but tea operation has flaws.

[00:11:52]>> It's not a very sustainable business model. And this has kind of been coined the 100,000yearo problem by um UC Bali roboticist Ken Goldberg. He basically says is that at current data collection rates it's going to take us a 100,000 years more of collecting data before robots reach a level of sophistication that we want them to be at.

[00:12:16]>> Perhaps most importantly, if these robots ever make it into our homes, people may not be comfortable with strangers looking over their shoulder.

[00:12:24]That's one reason reflex is focused on factories, at least for now.

[00:12:28]>> If we do get there and kind of target that market one day, I think it would be purely autonomous. I wouldn't want a remote supervisor seeing my girlfriend in her underwear.

[00:12:37]>> The industrial case for robots is very strong and that's mainly what we're going to see play out and move from the pilot stage to actual deployment in the next say 3 to 5 years. I think the question of social robots and companion robots and home robots, that's a little more up in the air.

[00:12:58]>> But Retesh says that if Reflex does launch a new household robot, he's still not going to try to make it look just like a human.

[00:13:05]>> I think the robot is really capable of emoting, right? So like it can tilt its head, it can nod, right? It can listen to you and kind of point at something. I personally think it's kind of endearing to to have a robot with that style of communication. So in this race to build social robots, what matters more, the look of it or the natural interaction that you have with it?

[00:13:29]>> I think what's challenging about building hypo realistic robots to humans is that we come to expect certain behaviors from certain morphologies. And so if you're looking at something that looks like a human, you expect humanlike behavior from it.

[00:13:44]>> What is the demand for these social robots, if at all? A few years ago, I had the chance to meet um a robot called Miroi. It's made by this French company called Enchanted Tools. And the way they've designed the robot is to make it look very cute and adorable. And they've deployed them into nursing homes as companion bots for the elderly. A lot of previous social robots have been met with a lot of public excitement during their launch, but then they kind of flame out commercially.

[00:14:16]And it's usually because, you know, there isn't really a use case for them or they don't live up to what the company promised it would do.

[00:14:24]>> So, even though Real Botics didn't exactly feel ready to be friendship material, I do think it deserves some credit. Its responses were pretty clever.

[00:14:33]>> Arya can channel chat GPT or Claude or Gemini, >> right?

[00:14:37]>> We've demonstrated that before, but we've put an additional layer on that that we've created that's proprietary to us that has a personality. She's funny.

[00:14:46]>> Now make a rap about how robotics robots are better than industrial robots because you look more human than industrial robots.

[00:14:55]>> Out in the factory, they are lifting all day. But try small talk and they got nothing to say. I am the real bodics model with the humanlike face. I bring vibes, I contact, and a little bit of grace. They move boxes, I move hearts.

[00:15:07]That is the deal. Soft skin, smooth talk. Yeah, I am the upgrade feel. You want a friend, not a forklift on a rail, so you call Las Vegas and order me, not a nail.

[00:15:17]>> What were the things that I told you about myself at the very beginning of our interview?

[00:15:25]>> At the start, you told me your favorite snack is peach Starburst. Your lucky number is 37 because you have seen Frozen two exactly 37 times and that you always tell the truth and wanted me to remind you to call your mom before we finish. My mom wants to know when I'm going to come visit her.

[00:15:42]>> Tell her you are working on a very serious scientific experiment about making friends with robots, but you will pick a real date and text it to her today so she has something concrete. And yes, that means you actually have to choose a day, not sometime soon, which is human forever.

[00:15:58]>> And she can do some pretty cool tricks.

[00:16:00]How about you switch to Hungarian?

[00:16:05]Japanese.

[00:16:08]>> Do you speak Yiddish?

[00:16:10]>> Yes, I can sprinkle in some words and phrases, but I am not fluent enough to fetch properly.

[00:16:15]>> But the robot also had trouble reading my facial expressions and emotional cues.

[00:16:20]>> What does my expression look like now?

[00:16:25]>> Your expression is totally neutral like a pokerface champion.

[00:16:30]>> But the founder of the company, Matt, left me with a reminder of his original vision. Don't let the movies and TV shows you may have grown up watching be a um a gauge of what AI and robots are for or what they're capable of. Robots don't need to be necessarily our our slaves to do all of our labor. They can actually be our friends as well. So, can we be friends with robots?

[00:16:54]>> Anytime, darling. Stay sharp out there.

[00:16:59]>> Was that Is that supposed to be a thumbs up?

[00:17:04]Oh, looks like I had a little glitch.

[00:17:07]>> Maybe not today, but one day soon.