Alone Together (23 page)
Authors: Sherry Turkle
It turns out that Gordon does protest too much. Later in this interview, Kidd, as he does with all subjects, asks Gordon if he has named his robot. “If you were talking to someone else about your robot, how would you refer to it?” Gordon does not reply and Kidd becomes more direct. “Has the robot acquired a name under your care?” Kidd notes the first smile he has seen in his hours with Gordon, as the older man offers, “Ingrid was the name.” After Gordon makes this admission, the tone of the interview shifts. Now Gordon has nothing to hide. He did not trust others to understand his relationship with Ingrid, but now he has opened up to the robot’s inventor. Gordon’s mood lightens. He refers easily to the robot as Ingrid, “she,” and “her.” He takes Kidd to Ingrid’s new location. The robot is now in Gordon’s downstairs bedroom so that he and the robot can have private conversations.
Kidd reports much quantifiable data on his project’s efficacy: pounds lost when the robot is present, times the robot is used, times the robot is ignored. But he adds a chapter to his dissertation that simply tells “stories,” such as those of Rose and Gordon. Kidd maintains that there are no experimental lessons or hypotheses to be gleaned from these stories, but I find support for a consistent narrative. A sociable robot is sent in to do a job—it could be doing crosswords or regulating food intake—and once it’s there, people attach. Things happen that elude measurement. You begin with an idea about curing difficulties with dieting. But then the robot and person go to a place where the robot is imagined as a cure of souls.
The stories of Andy, Jonathan, Rose, and Gordon illustrate different styles of relating to sociable robots and suggest distinct stages in relationships with them. People reassure themselves that the environment is safe; the robot does not make them seem childish. They are won over by the robot’s responsive yet stable presence. It seems to care about them, and they learn to be comforted. It is common for people to talk to cars and stereos, household appliances, and kitchen ovens. I have studied these kinds of conversations for more than three decades and find that they differ from conversations with sociable robots in important ways. When people talk to their ovens and Cuisinarts, they project their feelings in rants and supplications. When talking to sociable robots, adults, like children, move beyond the psychology of projection to that of engagement: from Rorschach to relationship. The robots’ special affordance is that they simulate listening, which meets a human vulnerability: people want to be heard. From there it seems a small step to finding ourselves in a place where people take their robots into private spaces to confide in them. In this solitude, people experience new intimacies. The gap between experience and reality widens. People feel heard, but the robots cannot hear.
Sometimes when I describe my work with sociable robots and the elderly, I get comments like, “Oh, you must be talking about people who are desperately lonely or somehow not fully there.” Behind these comments, I hear a desire to turn the people I study into “others,” to imply that my findings would not apply to them, to everyone. But I have come to believe that my observations of these very simple sociable robots and the elderly reveals vulnerabilities we all share. Andy and Jonathan are lonely, yes, but they are competent. Gordon is a bit of a curmudgeon, but that’s all. Rose has a sunny personality. She has human companionship; she just loves her robot.
“A BEAUTIFUL THING”Edna, eighty-two, lives alone in the house where she raised her family. On this day, her granddaughter Gail, who has fond childhood remembrances of Edna, is visiting with her two-year-old daughter, Amy. This is not unusual; Amy comes to play about every two weeks. Amy enjoys these visits; she likes the attention and loves being spoiled. Today there will be something new: my research team brings Edna a My Real Baby.
When the team arrives at mid-morning, Edna is focused on her great granddaughter. She hugs Amy, talks with her, and gives her snacks. She has missed Amy’s birthday and presents her with a gift. After about half an hour, we give Edna My Real Baby, and her attention shifts. She experiments with the robot, and her face lights up when she sees My Real Baby’s smile. After that, Edna speaks directly to the robot: “Hello, how are you? Are you being a good girl?” Edna takes My Real Baby in her arms. When it starts to cry, Edna finds its bottle, smiles, and says she will feed it. Amy tries to get her great grandmother’s attention but is ignored. Nestling My Real Baby close to her chest, Edna tells it that it will need to take a nap after eating and explains that she will bring it upstairs to the bedroom where “I will put you in your crib with your nice banky.” At that point Edna turns to the researchers to say that one of her children used to say “banky” for blanket, but she doesn’t remember which one. She continues to speak to My Real Baby: “Sweetie . . . you are my sweetie pie! Yes, you are.”
Edna spends most of the next hour engaged with My Real Baby. She worries that she does not understand its speech and, concerned about “hurting” the robot, says she wants to do things “right.” From time to time, Amy approaches Edna, either bringing her something—a cookie, a Kleenex—or directly asking for her attention. Sometimes Amy’s pleas are sweet, sometimes irritated. In no case are they heeded. Edna’s attention remains on My Real Baby. The atmosphere is quiet, even surreal: a great grandmother entranced by a robot baby, a neglected two-year-old, a shocked mother, and researchers nervously coughing in discomfort.
In the presence of elderly people who seem content to lose themselves in the worlds of their Paros and My Real Babies, one is tempted at times to say, “So what? What possible harm here? The seniors are happy. Who could be hurt?” Edna’s story provides one answer to this question. Once coupled with My Real Baby, Edna gives the impression of wanting to be alone—“together” only with the robot.
Finally, the spell is broken when we ask Edna about her experience. At the question “Would you enjoy having a My Real Baby in your home?” she answers with an annoyed, “No. Why would I?” She protests that “dolls are meant for children.” She “cannot imagine why older people would enjoy having a doll like this.” We are mindful of her discomfort. Does she feel caught out?
When we suggest that some adults do enjoy the presence of My Real Baby, Edna says that there are many other things she would rather do than play with a baby doll. She sounds defensive and she fusses absentmindedly with her neck and shirt collar. Now Edna tries to smooth things over by talking about My Real Baby as one would talk about a doll. She asks who made it, how much it costs, and if it uses batteries. And she asks what other people in our study have said about it. How have they behaved? Edna wants reassurance that others responded as she did. She says, “It is a beautiful thing . . . a fantastic idea as far as how much work went into it,” but she adds that she can’t imagine ever caring about it, even if she were to spend more time with it.
Gradually, Edna becomes less defensive. She says that being with My Real Baby and hearing it speak, caressing it, and having it respond, was “one of the strangest feelings I’ve ever had.” We ask Edna if talking with My Real Baby felt different from talking to a real baby. Reluctantly, Edna says no, it did not feel different, but “it’s frightening. It is an inanimate object.” She doesn’t use the word, but she’d clearly had an experience close to the uncanny as Freud describes it—something both long familiar and strangely new. Uncanny things catch us off guard. Edna’s response embarrasses her, and she tries to retreat from it.
Yet, when Amy once again offers her a cookie, Edna tells her to lower her voice: “Shush, the baby’s sleeping.” Edna awakes the sleeping My Real Baby with a cheery “Hello! Do you feel much better, full of pep?” She asks if My Real Baby wants to go to the park or if she wants some lunch. Amy whines that
she
is hungry and that
she
wants to have lunch. Edna does not listen—she is busy with My Real Baby.
she
is hungry and that
she
wants to have lunch. Edna does not listen—she is busy with My Real Baby.
At this point we ask Edna if she thinks My Real Baby is alive. She answers with a definite no and reminds us that it is “only a mechanical thing.” In response to the question “Can it can have feelings?” Edna replies, “I don’t know how to answer that; it’s an inanimate object.” But the next moment she turns to a crying My Real Baby and caresses its face, saying, “Oh, why are you crying? Do you want to sit up?” Smiling at My Real Baby, Edna says, “It’s very lifelike, beautiful, and happy.” In the final moments of our time with her, Edna says once again that she doesn’t feel any connection to My Real Baby and hands it back. She resumes her role as hostess to Gail and Amy and doesn’t mention the robot again.
The fifth-grade children I studied worried that their grandparents might prefer robots to their company. The case of Edna illustrates their worst fears realized. What seems most pleasing is the rhythm of being with the robot, its capacity to be passive and then surprise with sudden demands that can be met.
Twenty years ago, most people assumed that people were, and would always be, each other’s best companions. Now robots have been added to the mix. In my laboratory, a group of graduate students—in design, philosophy, social science, and computer science—watches tapes of the afternoon with Edna, Gail, Amy, and My Real Baby. They note that when My Real Baby responds to Edna, she seems to enter an altered state—happy to relive the past and to have a heightened experience of the present.
My Real Baby’s demands seem to suit her better than those of her great granddaughter. The young child likes different types of toys, changes her snack preferences even over the course of the visit, and needs to be remembered on her birthday. But Edna forgot the birthday and is having a hard time keeping up with the toys and snacks. My Real Baby gives her confidence that she is in a landscape where she can get things right.
My seminar students are sympathetic. Why shouldn’t people relate to whatever entity, human or not human, brings them most pleasure? One student offers, “If Edna’s preoccupation with a beautiful cat had brought her great joy . . . joy that caused her to neglect Amy, we would be amused and maybe suggest that she put the cat in the yard during a young person’s visit, but it wouldn’t upset us so. What is so shocking here is that she prefers a thing to a person, not a pet to a person. But really, it’s the same thing.” As most of these students see it, a next generation will become accustomed to a range of relationships: some with pets, others with people, some with avatars, some with computer agents on screens, and still others with robots. Confiding in a robot will be just one among many choices. We will certainly make our peace with the idea that grandchildren and great grandchildren may be too jumpy to be the most suitable company for their elders.
I believe that Andy would rather talk to a person than a robot, but there simply are not enough regular visitors in his life. It seems clear, however, that Edna and Jonathan would prefer to confide in a robot. Jonathan distrusts people; it is easy for him to feel humiliated. Edna is a perfectionist who knows that she can no longer meet her own standards. In both cases, the robot relaxes them and prompts remembrance.
13
And so, there are at least two ways of reading these case studies. You can see seniors chatting with robots, telling their stories, and feel positive. Or you can see people speaking to chimeras, showering affection into thin air, and feel that something is amiss.
13
And so, there are at least two ways of reading these case studies. You can see seniors chatting with robots, telling their stories, and feel positive. Or you can see people speaking to chimeras, showering affection into thin air, and feel that something is amiss.
And, of course, there is the third way, the way the robots are coming into the culture. And this is simply to fall into thinking that robots are the best one can do. When my research group on sociable robots began work in the late 1990s, our bias was humanistic. We saw people as having a privileged role in human relationships, even as we saw robots stake claims as companions. We were curious, certainly, but skeptical about what robots could provide. Yet, very often during years of working with the elderly, there were times when we got so discouraged about life in some nursing homes that we wanted to cast our lot with the robots. In these underresourced settings, an AIBO, a Paro, or a My Real Baby is a novelty, something no one has ever seen. The robots are passed around; people talk. Everyone feels free to have an opinion. Moments like these make the robots look good. At times, I was so struck by the desperation of seniors to have someone to talk to that I became content if they had
something
to talk to. Sometimes it was seniors themselves who reminded me that this doesn’t have to be a robot.
something
to talk to. Sometimes it was seniors themselves who reminded me that this doesn’t have to be a robot.
When Adele, seventy-eight, reflects on her introduction to Paro, her thoughts turn to her great aunt Margery who lived with her family when she was a girl. Margery mostly spent her days in her room, reading or knitting. She joined the family at meals, where she sat quietly. Adele remembers Margery at ninety, “shooing the children out of her room so that she could be alone with her memories.” As a child, Adele would peek at Margery through a crack in the door. Her great aunt talked to a photograph of herself with her mother and sisters. Adele sees Paro as a replacement for her aunt’s family portrait. “It encourages you to talk to it. . . .” Her voice trails off, and she hesitates: “Maybe it’s better to talk to a photograph.” I ask why. Adele takes some time to collect her thoughts. She finally admits that it is “sometimes hard to keep straight what is memory and what is now. If I’m talking to a photograph, well, I know I’m in my memories. Talking to a robot, I don’t know if it’s so sure.”
Adele’s comment makes me think of time with the robots somewhat differently. In one sense, their interactivity provokes recollection. It can trigger a memory. But in a robot’s next action, because it doesn’t understand human reverie, it can hijack memory by bringing things forward to a curious present. One is caught in between a reverie about a “banky” from your daughter’s childhood and the need to provision an imaginary lunch because My Real Baby cries out in hunger. The hunger may come to seem more real than the “banky.” Or the banky may no longer seem a memory.
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