You WILL Have Robots in Your Home, But They Won’t Be (or Do) Anything Like What You Imagine

Forget doing chores: what if a robot motivated you... and improved your quality of life?

Groundbreaking technologies – and groundbreaking companies – often seem to come out of nowhere. We often have no sense of what the next big thing will be until the next big thing is already upon us.

So I thought I’d go behind the scenes at several companies building the technologies – and industries – of tomorrow and see how that works: not just the science, not just the technology, but the process, the decisions, the goals, the iterations… not just the nuts and bolts challenges of creating tomorrow but also the leadership and management challenges.

To find those companies I collaborated with and got support from Intel Capital, the global investment organization of Intel Corporation. They made finding the right companies easy: figuring Intel is much better at predicting than me at predicting what will be next, I simply chose five technology startups Intel Capital recently invested in.

This time I talked with Paolo Pirjanian and Maja Mataric, the co-founders of Embodied, a startup that is developing state-of-the-art products to revolutionize robotics by leveraging recent advances in machine perception, cognition and learning. Their goal is to create systems and develop affordable personal robots to improve human wellness and quality of life. (To make the following more readable I’ve combined their comments… which is appropriate, since they’re definitely a team.)

And oh yeah: in my opinion they’re probably the smartest people in any room they enter.

One of my favorite questions is “Why?” So why robots?

We believe robots can and should perform tasks but also do good. There has been significant development in robotics in the past few years that enables breakthrough technology and makes it possible to develop personal robots for the home.

One example is voice recognition.

We’ve known each other for 17 years, and we really started to feel the social good of robotics, with all the enabling technology, can really help people who actually need help. Sure, there are recreational technologies, but there are also people who need care for many hours of the day.

So we’re working hard on what those kinds of robots will be like, how will they interact with people, and what kind of assistance they can provide.

I know you’re still in stealth mode, so tell me what you can about how you approached this.

From a research point of view, we defined the field of assistive robotics, of devices that help people who have limitations or deficiencies. That includes things like vision for the blind, or for exercise, but what we realized people need most isn’t recuperative; it’s giving them the motivation to do what they need to do. The motivation aspect is huge.

That’s why we got interested in assistive robots, in machines that can help people reach their individual potential.

What do we know? With the right robot assistance and engagement, stroke patients will exercise longer, kids in school will learn more, children with autism will engage more in play, and the elderly will get more exercise and be more physically active.

Part of it is the way we’re wired. Humans respond differently to physically embodied agents than they do to screens. That’s why we’re focused on robots instead of apps or screens.

One of the toughest things for startups to do is decide which particular path to take.

Everyone knows that in the future we will have home robots. That’s a given. In recent years, social robots, including things that are not robots but social devices, like Google Home, have started to change the way we interact with technology and has made a footprint on our daily lives.

A common challenge companies face is that they see the path, they know it will be a massive field… but how do you crack it? Many develop a platform and hope to stumble on the right applications. Others build development platforms that allow others to develop specific applications.

Our approach is different. We are developing the core applications themselves. Right now, we’re focusing on an application that has a really high pain point. That will make a major difference because the people involved are dealing with significant pain and the alternative is not widely acceptable: it’s too expensive, or not available.

Some people will naturally hesitate to embrace robots, so solving a major problem in one area should help ease some of the broader concerns. Or to put it better, that will help ease you into larger markets.

Typically, especially in consumer products, you have to provide enough value for the cost. The price/value balance has to be correct. The first robotic vacuums were $199. Now, by improving the quality of the cleaning so it’s closer to what an upright vacuum delivers, people will pay hundreds of dollars.

In our case there’s a multiplier effect. When you’re dealing with pain, and care, that equation changes completely.

So how will you decide an application is “ready,” especially since your robots won’t just complete tasks, they’ll interact with people?

The only way to do that is to have a very user-centric design and development process. From day one we have interacted almost on a daily basis with our eventual users. They’re helping us gain insights into the details of their needs and understand how to craft the product to meet those needs.

Then, as we get closer, we test, test, test. That’s our middle name. Being user focused, understanding the voice of the customer, and evaluating what the product is doing is a lot more important than what we think as leaders of the company. We can try to make decisions but it really doesn’t matter what we think -- the person that matters most is the customer.

So, if we have a heated discussion about a feature, we let the customer make the decision.

Sometimes it’s hard to get end-users to engage when you’re trying to develop a product.

Our users help us because we’re a light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone wants us to succeed. With task robots, people were interested in helping because it was a robot and it was cool. This is another order of magnitude because it will have a significant impact on the lives of the people it will help.

When we are able to talk about the first application we’re working on, it will be very clear there’s a need.

So need isn’t the question. The main question we are dealing with is how to transform the way people interact with machines: Voice recognition, gesture recognition, etc., all must work well for our application to work.

Is it hard to keep people focused when so much development is involved? I’m not sure I would have the attention span.

Given our agile mentality we are turning a prototype every other month. Every month we get deeper and deeper into testing with the end users.

We started with a clean slate and said, “What is the minimum prototype we can build to start validating our assumptions?” Then the next month we went to the next level, and the next month the next.

That grounding in reality, that constant interaction with the user, is what keeps us focused. Otherwise you’re right. It can get fuzzy. Lock a bunch of smart people in a room and say, “Come out in three years and show us what you’ve got,” and they’re bound to be wrong. They will make impressive progress on all the wrong things.

There’s tremendous competition in the robotics field. Is that scary?

It’s exciting. It’s wonderful.

Another way to think about it is, “What if you were the only company doing what you do?” That would be scary in a different way.

It’s great that there’s an ecosystem out there, even if it’s competitive. It’s great to know what we’re doing can benefit people. Being able to actually to build something and be competitive in the marketplace, where there are so many unknowns, where so many things are changing… that’s exciting.

And it’s really fun to build a team culture that can navigate through uncertain waters.

Speaking of teams – how do you find the right people?

We definitely need a diverse group of people in terms of skill set, gender, etc. In a lot of tech companies there is a bias towards male engineers, and in my past company it was hard to attract female engineers… but here we don’t have that problem. We have such a socially important mission. We’re developing a character brought to life in a rich way. We focus on adaptability, agile, nimble, rapid iterations, we let people experiment quickly and fail fast and learn...

Today, in the competitive landscape where everyone is doing robotics, the fact that we have a very impactful and meaningful mission as a company is what is draws people towards us.

Engineers like to work on things that have a real social impact.

Plenty of companies focus on automation. We’re focused on the most important thing in the house: your family.