會笑會學習有禮貌 家用機器人Jibo

At first glance, Jibo looks a bit like Wall-E’s robot girlfriend. Both Jibo, a real robot, and Wall-E’s girlfriend, the fictional Pixar character, have the look of a futuristic Apple product: reflective white plastic, round curves, a black screen for a “face,” and smooth swiveling movements.

乍一看，Jibo長得有點像皮克斯動畫工作室(Pixar)創作的《機器人總動員》(Wall-E)裏那個主人公的女友Eve。Jibo和Eve的外觀都頗具未來主義範兒，看上去像是蘋果公司(Apple)的產品：光滑的白色塑料外殼，圓潤的曲線，一張充當“臉”的黑色屏幕，轉動靈活。

But Jibo’s raison d’être is slightly more in line with Rosie, the robot maid from the 1960s animated television series The Jetsons, and its operating system is more akin to the one employed by Samantha, the artificially intelligent character from the 2013 Spike Jonze film Her. (One key difference: Jibo is male, according to its makers.)

不過從本質上看，Jibo其實更像上世紀60年代動畫片《摩登家庭》（The Jetsons）裏的機器人女傭Rosie。它的操作系統更類似於2013年斯派克o瓊斯的電影《她》(Her)中的虛擬人工智能角色Samantha使用的那種。（但根據其製作者介紹，一個關鍵的區別是，Jibo其實是個男孩。）

Jibo is described as a “family robot” because it is able to see, hear, speak, learn, and help families with a variety of tasks around the house. It—he?—can “relate” by expressing itself in natural language, using “social and emotive cues so you understand each other better.” Jibo is meant to be a companion.

Jibo被稱做一款“家庭機器人”，因爲它具有看、聽、說、學等功能，而且可以幫助我們幹許多家務活。它（或者說“他”？）可以使用自然語言來表達自己，並且可以“使用社交性和感性的暗示，讓你們更好地理解對方。”總之，Jibo致力於成爲一個居傢伙伴。

It’s the creation of a team of robot architects, cloud computing engineers, animators, conversational technologists, and human-robot interaction engineers. Jibo, Inc. is backed by $5.59 million in venture funding from investors including Charles River Ventures, Fairhaven Capital Partners, Osage University Partners, and angel backers.

它是一羣機器人設計師、雲計算工程師、動畫工程師、會話技術專家和人機互動工程師的心血之作。Jibo公司也從查爾斯河風險投資公司（Charles River Ventures）、菲爾海文資本合作公司（Fairhaven Capital Partners）、奧塞治大學合夥公司（Osage University Partners）和天使投資人那裏獲得了559萬美元的融資。

So far, people like Jibo. A crowdfunding campaign, launched last month, raked in more than $1.5 million from more than 3,500 people, handily surpassing its $100,000 target. (The Boston-based company does not expect to ship its first units, priced at $499 each, until the 2015 winter holiday season. The crowdfunding campaign is designed to get developers excited about building apps for the robot, it said.)

到目前爲止，人們都很喜歡Jibo。上個月Jibo推出了一個衆籌項目，很快就從3500多人那裏籌集到了150多萬美元，輕而易舉地超過了該公司預設的10萬美元的目標。（這家總部位於波士頓的公司預計，第一批定價爲499美元的產品要等到2015年冬的假日季才能上市。該公司表示，推出這個衆籌項目是爲了激發軟件開發者爲Jibo設計應用程序的興趣。）

Naturally, I had to meet Jibo. Off to a hotel room in Midtown Manhattan, then, where two Jibos and Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, the robot’s creator, awaited me. The robot is not yet fully functioning, it turns out. I watched a prepared demo where Jibo, about a foot tall, turned to look me in the eye. This was disarming at first, as if I was being followed by a security camera. Once he started talking to me, it began to feel more natural—as natural as a robot in a 1980s science fiction movie, anyway. Unlike his lesser robotic peers, or, say, a smartphone, Jibo did not rudely buzz or ding when there was a new message to communicate to me. He politely said, “Excuse me, Erin,” and waited for me to respond before continuing.

當然，我也要去見一下Jibo。在曼哈頓市中心的一家酒店的房間裏，兩個Jibo機器人和它們的發明者辛西婭o佈雷西亞博士正在等着我。事實證明，Jibo的功能還沒有充分完善。就在我觀看一段準備好的演示視頻時，大概一英尺高的Jibo突然扭過頭來直勾勾地看着我。這種眼神一開始讓我覺得有點緊張，好像是被一臺安保攝像機盯着。一旦開始說話，它給人的感覺就自然多了——至少像80年代科幻片裏的機器人一樣自然。和那些自動化程度不高的智能設備相比（比如智能手機），準備向我傳遞新信息時，Jibo不會粗魯地“嗡”或“叮”一聲，而是會禮貌地說道：“打擾了，艾林”，然後等我做出反應後，纔會繼續說話。

In the room, Jibo showed off his swiveling, spinning and leaning moves to me, along with some of the programs he’ll feature. He ended his performance with a cheesy joke, and his eyes turned to tiny half-moons when he laughed at the punch line.

在房間裏，Jibo向我展示旋轉，偏頭等動作，以及一些他搭載的一些程序。最後他以一個很勁爆的笑話結束了表演。當這個笑點惹得他大笑的時候，Jibo眼睛眯成了一個小小的月芽。

Jibo can perform a number of functions. He can tell children’s stories and snap family photos using face recognition. He can place Skype calls and handle communications for which you would normally use a phone. Jibo is meant to stay in the home, perched on a table or countertop, and a demo video shows him greeting a single man when he comes home from work and offering to order Chinese takeout. In another scene, Jibo is hanging out while a woman kneads bread. He chimes in to remind her that her daughter is picking her up soon. “Thanks, Jibo,” the woman responds, not unlike Jane Jetson talking to Rosie.

Jibo可以實現一些功能，比如給小孩子講故事、利用面部識別技術抓拍家庭照片等等。它也可以用Skype打電話，另外某些需要用手機完成的通訊也可以通過他來完成。Jibo是爲家庭設計的，它可以放在桌子或工作臺上。在一段展示視頻中，當一個男人下班回家時，Jibo立即向他問好，然後問他需要不需要叫中餐外賣。在另一幕中，一個女人正在揉麪。這時Jibo提醒她，她的女兒很快要來接她外出購物。那個女人回答道：“謝謝你，Jibo。”和《摩登家庭》裏簡o杰特森對Rosie所說的話沒什麼區別。

Jibo can be considered the next logical step past today’s “telepresence” robots, which work only by connecting a smartphone or tablet—a brain, if you will—to a mobile base. For example, Romo augments your cell phone with rubber tank treads, though it requires a tablet or another phone to serve as a remote controller. Ubooly is a plush children’s toy in which parents can insert their cell phone for playtime. The Double telepresence robot, essentially an iPad on top of a Segway, allows people to feel physically present in meetings and move around the office when they’re working remotely. It’s a bit like Max Headroom on a broomstick and, to be frank, a little silly in practice.

Jibo可以被視爲目前的“遠程呈現”機器人的下一步發展方向。所謂的“遠程呈現”機器人就是把一臺手機或平板電腦（也就是機器人的“大腦”）連接到一個移動基座上。比如，Romo無非就是給你的手機安裝了一個橡膠“坦克底盤”，而且它還需要另一臺平板或手機作爲遙控器。Ubooly則是一款兒童玩具，父母可以把他們的手機插到毛絨玩具的肚子裏，讓它陪孩子玩。遠程呈現機器人Double，本質上就是把iPad放在一輛賽格威兩輪車(Segway)上面，讓身處異地的人們覺得他們親自參加會議或在辦公室走來走去。它有點像英劇《超級麥克斯》(Max Headroom)裏的主人公，但老實說，實際使用時，它看起來真是蠢萌蠢萌的。

Jibo works with smartphones, but Breazeal chose to give the robot its own brain, rather than rely on a smartphone. The smartphone would have limited the robot’s capabilities, she says. As it turns out, people don’t like to put their phones into a robot anyway. They prefer to keep it on hand, Breazeal says.

Jibo也可以和智能手機一起工作，但佈雷西亞決定給予它一個屬於自己的大腦，而不是完全依賴智能手機。她認爲智能手機會限制它的能力。事實證明，人們並不喜歡把自己的手機放在一個機器人身上，而是喜歡一直把手機拿在手上。

Whether that can make a difference—or translate to sales of in-home robots—is up for debate, but if anyone can figure this out, it’s Jibo’s inventor. Breazeal has dedicated her career to social robots, starting as a grad student at M.I.T. When she was younger, she didn’t understand why NASA was sending robots to Mars but they still hadn’t arrived in people’s homes. It’s because those robots weren’t designed to be social, she reasoned. Breazeal went on to build the first a social robot, which was called Kismet and intended for children. She has since published numerous studies on social robotics and in 2010 delivered a TED talk on the subject. People respond to human-like robots the same way they respond to people, she argued, and robots with the ability to convey expression increase empathy, engagement, and collaboration among people in a way that a robot with a flat demeanor cannot.

目前還不知道，這究竟是不是一個明智的決定，這樣做能否給Jibo帶來好銷量。但對這個問題最有發言權的人，可能還是Jibo的發明者佈雷西亞。早在麻省理工學院(MIT)讀書時，佈雷西亞就把她的整個職業生涯奉獻給了社交型機器人。她最初不明白爲什麼美國國家航空航天局（NASA）可以把機器人送上火星，卻不能把機器人送進地球上的千家萬戶。後來她究其根源，覺得這是因爲機器人在設計上缺乏社交性的緣故。後來佈雷西亞設計了她的第一款專門針對小孩子的社交機器人Kismet。從那時起，她發表了不計其數的關於社交型機器人的論文。2010年，她還在TED大會上針對這個課題發表了一篇演講。她認爲，人們會像跟真人溝通一樣與仿人型機器人進行交流。而能夠傳遞感性信號的機器人，可以提高人們的代入感、參與感和協作性，這是缺少人性化因素的工作機器人所做不到的。

An estimated 3 million service robots, which are intended for personal and domestic use, were sold in 2012, according to the International Federation of Robotics, representing sales of $1.2 billion. The IFR predicts 22 million robots to be sold through 2016.

根據國際機器人聯合會（International Federation of Robotics）統計，2012年，全球共售出大約300萬臺家用和個人用途的服務型機器人，銷售額達12億美元。該組織預測稱，到2016年，全球將賣出2200萬臺機器人。

Jibo is purposely designed to not resemble a human, Breazeal says. The goal is to create what she calls a humanized experience, “because that’s what empowers people,” she says. Robots that try to look like human beings end up being a little too science fiction.

佈雷西亞表示，Jibo有意地沒有設計成人的外型。Jibo的目標是創建她所謂的“擬人體驗”，因爲她認爲：“那纔是讓人之所以成爲人的東西。”試圖模仿人類外觀的機器人不免科幻色彩太濃了。

Artificial intelligence has certainly been top-of-mind for many Americans, both because of the film Her and ever-present economic fears that robots will make our jobs redundant. A recent New York Times article, “The Future of Robot Caregivers,” sunnily outlined how robots could lighten the burden of caring for aging baby boomers:

人工智能無疑是很多美國人耳熟能詳的東西，這既託了電影《她》的福，也是因爲很多人一直擔心機器人會搶了我們的飯碗。《紐約時報》(The New York Times)最近刊發的一篇名爲《機器人護士的未來》的文章樂觀地表示，機器人護工未來可能會承擔起照顧“嬰兒潮”一代老年人的重任，從而將大大減輕我們這一代年輕人的養老壓力。

“In an ideal world, it would be: Each of us would have at least one kind and fully capable human caregiver to meet our physical and emotional needs as we age. But most of us do not live in an ideal world, and a reliable robot may be better than an unreliable or abusive person, or than no one at all.”

“在理想世界裏，等我們老了，每個人都應該至少有一名善良、合格的人類護工來照顧我們的身體和精神需求。但我們大多數人並非住在‘理想國’，因此一個可靠的機器人很可能強於一個不可靠甚至有虐待傾向的人——更別說可能根本沒人來照顧我們。”

In Japan, robots help with a nursing shortage by conversing with patients that have dementia. Similar life-helper robots can be found in Sweden and around Europe, according to the Times.

這篇文章聲稱，在日本，由於護工不足，機器人已經承擔起了與老年癡呆患者交談的任務。類似的護士機器人也出現在了瑞典等歐洲國家。

Not everyone welcomes this development. “This how to fail the third machine age,” wrote Zeynep Tufekci, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina’s iSchool, in response to the article.

但也並非所有人都歡迎這種新進展。對於這篇文章，北卡羅來納大學(University of North Carolina)信息學院社會學教授澤伊內普o圖菲克希撰文迴應道：“這是第三個機器時代的失敗。”

“In my view, warehousing elderly and children—especially children with disabilities—in rooms with machines that keep them busy, when large numbers of humans beings around the world are desperate for jobs that pay a living wage is worse than the Dickensian nightmares of mechanical industrialization, it’s worse than the cold, alienated workplaces depicted by Kafka.”

“在我看來，把大量的老人和孩子關在屋子裏——尤其是有殘疾的兒童，然後用機器人陪着他們幹這幹那，而全球大量的人類則忙着找一份勉強餬口的工作，這其實比狄更斯筆下的機器工業化噩夢更可怕，比卡夫卡筆下冷漠、疏遠的職場更可悲。”

“It’s an abdication of a desire to remain human, to be connected to each other through care, and to take care of each other.”

“這相當於放棄了對保持人性的渴望，放棄了通過關愛來彼此聯繫，放棄了互相照顧。”

Tufekci argues that based on unemployment figures, we’re not facing a shortage of caregivers. Rather, she writes, “we’re facing a shortage of caring.”

圖菲克希認爲，從失業數據來看，我們並非面臨護工的短缺。相反，“我們面臨的是缺乏關愛。”

Meanwhile, a new study from Pew Research suggests that tech industry influencers are split on whether robots will help or hurt the economy. Just over half of those surveyed believed robots won’t take away more jobs than they create, resulting in a net positive for the economy. However, the other half felt less optimistic about our robotic future.

與此同時，皮尤研究中心（Pew Research）的一項新研究顯示，對科技行業有影響力的人們在機器人究竟會促進還是會損害國民經濟的問題上持不同態度。約半數以上受訪者認爲，機器人搶走的工作不會比它們創造的工作多，因此會給經濟帶來正能量。另一半受訪者則對與機器人共處的未來感到不太樂觀。

“The other 48%, though, think that robots will displace huge numbers of white and blue collar workers in the next 10 years, which would not only leave people unemployed but which could disrupt social order.”

“有48%的受訪者認爲，未來10年裏，機器人將會取代大量白領和藍領工人。這不僅會導致大量人口失業，還會導致社會失序。”

Breazeal contends that Jibo isn’t meant to be a caregiver for aging people or a replacement for human labor. The robots are meant to help older users age independently. “Jibo is about empowerment and helping people do what they want to do and what they need to do,” she says. “Its not about replacing people.”

佈雷西亞認爲，Jibo並不是要成爲老年人的護工，也不想取代人力勞動。研製這些機器人的目的，是爲了幫助用戶能夠獨立面對老年生活。她表示：“Jibo是要給人以能量，幫助人們做他們想做、需要做的事，而不是要取代別人。”

“There’s a lot of kneejerk reaction,” she adds. “We’re not trying to create a robot caregiver at all. We’re empowering people to live independently and be emotionally connected to their family, because that’s what matters.”

她表示：“有很多人本能地表示反對。我們並不是要發明一個機器人護工，而是要讓人們能夠獨立生活，在情感上與他們的家庭保持連接，因爲這纔是最重要的。”