#HTE

What’s the One Design Element That Can Make a Robot Lovable?

When Pixar’s Wall-E came out in 2008, we were introduced to a robot very different than any other previously depicted in pop culture. Not the titular Wall-E, who was similar enough to Short Circuit’s Number 5 to be familiar; no, we’re talking about Eve, the gleaming, smooth-surface ‘bot whose design Jony Ive was famously consulted on.

Eve looked like she came straight out of Cupertino and shared DNA with the earlier generations of iPods. But presented with her physical design, consider the challenge Pixar’s animators faced:

How do you make a smooth white blob like that relatable? The answer is: With the eyes. Not robotic, mechanical eyes, not organic-looking eyes that mimic those of a human, but with simple graphic elements produced with a marvelous economy of pixels. Compare the left/right photos below:

Those eyes—whose horizontal striations anachronistically suggest they were shot out of a cathode-ray tube—managed to convey mood, intent, emotion and personality. Incorporating them into the design was a brilliant call by Pixar’s team.

Speaking of brilliant, a robotics company called Anki has assembled their own team of eggheads—designers, engineers, roboticists, AI experts, and even ex-Pixar creatives—and borrowed the idea of Eve’s eyes, right down to the color and aesthetic, to incorporate into their toy robot, Cozmo. While Cozmo is tracked like Wall-E, he’s a fraction of the size, and it’s the eyes that provide feedback to his owners/users:

Cozmo is meant to be part toy, part companion. Here’s an example of how the eyes serve to convey the robot’s “mood:”

In a video released this week, the developers explain Cozmo’s origins, why they created him, and show you just how broad their creative team is:

Regular readers of this blog know that your correspondent fears both robots and AI. But for Cozmo, I make an exception. I mean he’s both cute, and small enough that if he goes haywire you can still crush him under your foot.

While Anki’s website introduces him by saying “World meet Cozmo, Cozmo meet world,” his October launch is only scheduled for the U.S. They’re taking pre-orders now at $180 a pop.