Last month, Apple offered up more insight into its consumer robotics work via a research paper that argues that traits like expressive movements are key to optimizing human-robot interaction. “Like most animals,” starts the report, “humans are highly sensitive to motion and subtle changes in movement.”
To illustrate its point, Apple pays homage to Pixar, another company founded with help from the late Steve Jobs. Since Pixar first debuted in an eponymous 1985 short film, the Luxo Jr. lamp has served as the animation studio’s long-time mascot. For its research, Apple, too, chose a lamp for its own “non-anthropomorphic” example. After all, lamps don’t possess any obvious humanlike traits, but they can be made to behave in familiar ways.
“For robots to interact more naturally with humans,” the paper notes, “robot movement design should likewise integrate expressive qualities, such as intention, attention, and emotions, alongside traditional functional considerations like task fulfillment and time efficiency.”
A video released in conjunction with the paper showcases some of these movements. Unsurprisingly, they mostly echo those of Pixar’s creation. That includes the same analogous parts, with the lampshade serving as the head, while the arm stands in for a neck.
The most intriguing part of the video, with regard to potential productization, comes as a user queries the robot. At its simplest, the unnamed lamp robot operates as a more kinetic version of a HomePod, Amazon Echo, or other smart speaker. The person facing the lamp asks a query and the robot responds in Siri’s voice.
A split screen video highlights the importance of expressive movements. Asked what the weather is like outside, one version simply states the answer. The other swivels its head to look out the window as if the view offers insight on which the robot can draw. It’s a simple example, but one that drives home how even small movements tap into our lizard brain’s pareidolia. The familiarity of expressive movements helps form a connection between human and object.
Apple’s research arrives as the company is reportedly ramping up its consumer robotics efforts ahead of the planned release of a more advanced smart home system. It’s clear how these learnings might be applied to make a robotic home hub more expressive. It’s similar to the approach Amazon has taken with its Astro robot. However, the inclusion of a non-anthropomorphic form factor in the research implies that the robot may be even less humanoid than Amazon’s.
Rumors surrounding the upcoming release have described the hub as “a robot arm with an iPad attached.” It’s easy to see how the lamp form factor could be applied there. Of course, Apple’s consumer robotics division appears to still be the research phase. Plenty can happen between now and then, from a major shift in form factor to a decision to pull the plug on the project prior to launch.