Podcasts about social robots

In this conversation, I discuss the pervasive influence of AI on daily life and its potential negative effects on cognitive abilities, creativity, and human relationships. Let's talk about the importance of maintaining critical thinking skills and the role of art in reflecting human experiences. The conversation also touches on the environmental impact of AI and the need for intentional use of technology to foster personal growth and empathy.Takeaways:AI is becoming ubiquitous in our daily lives.Over-reliance on AI can lead to cognitive decline.Creativity and problem-solving skills are at risk due to outsourcing thinking.Art is a vital reflection of the human experience.AI-generated content lacks the personal touch of human creativity.The environmental impact of AI is significant and concerning.Education and knowledge are essential for personal empowerment.Our brains are adaptable and can be trained to improve cognitive skills.Mindfulness and intentionality are crucial in using technology.Empathy is essential for healthy human relationships. Enjoy & dont forget to tweet/ig story me a screenshot of you listening!Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots by Eve Herold book mentioned: https://amzn.to/4jUl6gtMY NEW WEBSITE!! Shop merch, sign up for my newsletter, book a coffee chat, & more: http://stellaraeherself.comI edit using Riverside! https://www.riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_5&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=stella-holtshop my new glo up merch!! https://stellarae.myspreadshop.com/instagram http://instagram.com/stellaraepodcastlisten to and/or support the podcast: https://anchor.fm/stella-raetiktok: http://tiktok.com/@stellaraeherselftwitter: http://twitter.com/stellaraegoodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/10449999-stella-raemy fav books/products/health: https://www.amazon.com/shop/stellaraemy current filming set up:camera: https://amzn.to/4cEQiLOmicrophone: https://amzn.to/3Z2A5gctripod: https://amzn.to/3AEmxgKring light: https://amzn.to/3XxZrShbox lights: https://amzn.to/4e1Q1Ubportable light for phone: https://amzn.to/3XxZspjjoin my patreon for ad-free episodes, early access, merch discounts, behind the scenes, & more! https://www.patreon.com/stellaraepodlisten on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DMbeh7EqiqgROIjvW0sI9listen on apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-stella-rae-podcast/id1255618182Chapters00:00 The Rise of AI and Its Impact on Cognitive Function02:53 The Role of AI in Creativity and Art06:06 AI and Human Relationships: A Double-Edged Sword08:56 Cultivating Critical Thinking in an AI World#StellaRaePodcast

 Hvordan kan roboter hjelpe oss i hverdagen – og hva betyr det at de er universelt utformet? Vi har tatt praten med professor Zada Pajalic som jobber som visedekan ved fakultetet vårt, der hun tar oss med inn i en fascinerende verden av sosiale roboter og teknologiske hjelpemidler.Gjennom en engasjerende samtale får vi høre om alt fra roboter som kan hjelpe eldre med måltider, til hvordan teknologi kan støtte barn med autisme i deres hverdag. Episoden utforsker også etiske dilemmaer, lovgivning og viktigheten av å designe teknologi som fungerer for alle – uansett alder, funksjonsevne eller behov. Med konkrete eksempler og personlige refleksjoner gir Zada et unikt innblikk i et felt som stadig er i rask utvikling.Dette er episoden for deg som er nysgjerrig på hvordan teknologi kan gjøre hverdagen bedre – og hva som ligger bak utviklingen av morgendagens sosiale roboter!Vil du lese mer om dette? Her er lenker til aktuelle forskningsressurser:Saplacan, Schulz, Tørresen, & Pajalic. (2023). Health Professionals' Views on the Use of Social Robots with Vulnerable Users: A Scenario-Based Qualitative Study Using Story Dialogue Method. IEEE conference proceedings.Pajalic, Z., de Sousa, D. A., Strøm, B. S., Lausund, H., Breievne, G., Kisa, S., Saplacan, D., Larsen, M. H., Jøranson, N., & McGinnis, R. S. (2023). Welfare technology interventions among older people living at home-A systematic review of RCT studies. PLOS Digital Health, 2(1), e0000184. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pdig.0000184Report on User Activities in UD-Robots Project – Are Social Robots Universally Designed? https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3054584 Saplacan, Herstad, Tørresen, & Pajalic. (2020). A Framework on Division of Work Tasks between Humans and Robots in the Home. MDPI. https://hdl.handle.net/10642/8944 

******Support the channel****** Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao   ******Follow me on****** Website: https://www.thedissenter.net/ The Dissenter Goodreads list: https://shorturl.at/7BMoB Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT   This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/   Dr. Anna Puzio is a Researcher in the ESDiT Research Programme (Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies) at the University of Twente. She is a philosopher, theologian and ethicist. Her research areas include anthropology, anthropology and ethics of technology and environmental ethics. In this episode, we start by talking about social robots: what they are, humanoid robots, the issues with anthropomorphizing them, and whether they can be moral patients. We then discuss how technological change can impact the way we understand human beings, digital identities and posthumanism, and implications for anthropology. We also talk about religious robots and their functions, and the ethics of transhumanism. Finally, we talk about digital afterlives and their ethical implications. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: PER HELGE LARSEN, JERRY MULLER, BERNARDO SEIXAS, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, PHIL KAVANAGH, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, FERGAL CUSSEN, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, ROMAIN ROCH, DIEGO LONDOÑO CORREA, YANICK PUNTER, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, NELLEKE BAK, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, PAULO TOLENTINO, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, EDWARD HALL, HEDIN BRØNNER, DOUGLAS FRY, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, URSULA LITZCKE, SCOTT, ZACHARY FISH, TIM DUFFY, SUNNY SMITH, JON WISMAN, WILLIAM BUCKNER, PAUL-GEORGE ARNAUD, LUKE GLOWACKI, GEORGIOS THEOPHANOUS, CHRIS WILLIAMSON, PETER WOLOSZYN, DAVID WILLIAMS, DIOGO COSTA, ALEX CHAU, AMAURI MARTÍNEZ, CORALIE CHEVALLIER, BANGALORE ATHEISTS, LARRY D. LEE JR., OLD HERRINGBONE, MICHAEL BAILEY, DAN SPERBER, ROBERT GRESSIS, IGOR N, JEFF MCMAHAN, JAKE ZUEHL, BARNABAS RADICS, MARK CAMPBELL, TOMAS DAUBNER, LUKE NISSEN, KIMBERLY JOHNSON, JESSICA NOWICKI, LINDA BRANDIN, GEORGE CHORIATIS, VALENTIN STEINMANN, PER KRAULIS, ALEXANDER HUBBARD, BR, JONAS HERTNER, URSULA GOODENOUGH, DAVID PINSOF, SEAN NELSON, MIKE LAVIGNE, JOS KNECHT, LUCY, MANVIR SINGH, PETRA WEIMANN, CAROLA FEEST, MAURO JÚNIOR, 航 豊川, TONY BARRETT, BENJAMIN GELBART, NIKOLAI VISHNEVSKY, STEVEN GANGESTAD, AND TED FARRIS! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, AL NICK ORTIZ, NICK GOLDEN, AND CHRISTINE GLASS! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, BOGDAN KANIVETS, ROSEY, AND GREGORY HASTINGS!

******Support the channel****** Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao   ******Follow me on****** Website: https://www.thedissenter.net/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT   This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/   Dr. Azim Shariff is Professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a social psychologist whose research focuses on where morality intersects with religion, cultural attitudes and economics. Another rapidly expanding part of his research looks at human-technology interactions and the ethics of automation, including self-driving cars. In this episode, we start by talking about cultural differences between East Asia and North America in how people react to robots, algorithms, and AI. We talk about the example of robot preachers and credibility-enhancing displays. We discuss people's belief in free will, and how it varies according to the situation and some individual traits. We discuss whether people always follow their own self-interest in politics. We talk about why people in the US love rags-to-riches stories, and whether people who became rich or the born rich support social welfare more. Finally, we discuss the phenomenon of moralization of effort, and what displays of effort signal socially. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: PER HELGE LARSEN, JERRY MULLER, BERNARDO SEIXAS, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, PHIL KAVANAGH, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, FERGAL CUSSEN, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, ROMAIN ROCH, DIEGO LONDOÑO CORREA, YANICK PUNTER, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, NELLEKE BAK, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, PAULO TOLENTINO, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, EDWARD HALL, HEDIN BRØNNER, DOUGLAS FRY, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, URSULA LITZCKE, SCOTT, ZACHARY FISH, TIM DUFFY, SUNNY SMITH, JON WISMAN, WILLIAM BUCKNER, PAUL-GEORGE ARNAUD, LUKE GLOWACKI, GEORGIOS THEOPHANOUS, CHRIS WILLIAMSON, PETER WOLOSZYN, DAVID WILLIAMS, DIOGO COSTA, ANTON ERIKSSON, ALEX CHAU, AMAURI MARTÍNEZ, CORALIE CHEVALLIER, BANGALORE ATHEISTS, LARRY D. LEE JR., OLD HERRINGBONE, MICHAEL BAILEY, DAN SPERBER, ROBERT GRESSIS, IGOR N, JEFF MCMAHAN, JAKE ZUEHL, BARNABAS RADICS, MARK CAMPBELL, TOMAS DAUBNER, LUKE NISSEN, KIMBERLY JOHNSON, JESSICA NOWICKI, LINDA BRANDIN, NIKLAS CARLSSON, GEORGE CHORIATIS, VALENTIN STEINMANN, PER KRAULIS, KATE VON GOELER, ALEXANDER HUBBARD, BR, MASOUD ALIMOHAMMADI, JONAS HERTNER, URSULA GOODENOUGH, DAVID PINSOF, SEAN NELSON, MIKE LAVIGNE, JOS KNECHT, ERIK ENGMAN, LUCY, YHONATAN SHEMESH, MANVIR SINGH, PETRA WEIMANN, PEDRO BONILLA, CAROLA FEEST, STARRY, MAURO JÚNIOR, 航 豊川, TONY BARRETT, AND BENJAMIN GELBART! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, AL NICK ORTIZ, NICK GOLDEN, AND CHRISTINE GLASS! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, BOGDAN KANIVETS, ROSEY, AND GREGORY HASTINGS!

The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's foremost experts. If there's one universal trait among humans, it's our social nature. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots (St. Martin's Press, 2024). Socially interactive robots will soon transform friendship, work, home life, love, warfare, education, and nearly every nook and cranny of modern life. This book is an exploration of how we, the most gregarious creatures in the food chain, could be changed by social robots. On the other hand, it considers how we will remain the same, and asks how human nature will express itself when confronted by a new class of beings created in our own image. Drawing upon recent research in the development of social robots, including how people react to them, how in our minds the boundaries between the real and the unreal are routinely blurred when we interact with them, and how their feigned emotions evoke our real ones, science writer Eve Herold takes readers through the gamut of what it will be like to live with social robots and still hold on to our humanity. This is the perfect book for anyone interested in the latest developments in social robots and the intersection of human nature and artificial intelligence and robotics, and what it means for our future. Sophia the Robot Tries to Convince the Experts Eve Herold is an award-winning science writer and consultant in the scientific and medical nonprofit space. A longtime communications and policy executive for scientific organizations, she currently serves as Director of Policy Research and Education for the Healthspan Action Coalition. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's foremost experts. If there's one universal trait among humans, it's our social nature. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots (St. Martin's Press, 2024). Socially interactive robots will soon transform friendship, work, home life, love, warfare, education, and nearly every nook and cranny of modern life. This book is an exploration of how we, the most gregarious creatures in the food chain, could be changed by social robots. On the other hand, it considers how we will remain the same, and asks how human nature will express itself when confronted by a new class of beings created in our own image. Drawing upon recent research in the development of social robots, including how people react to them, how in our minds the boundaries between the real and the unreal are routinely blurred when we interact with them, and how their feigned emotions evoke our real ones, science writer Eve Herold takes readers through the gamut of what it will be like to live with social robots and still hold on to our humanity. This is the perfect book for anyone interested in the latest developments in social robots and the intersection of human nature and artificial intelligence and robotics, and what it means for our future. Sophia the Robot Tries to Convince the Experts Eve Herold is an award-winning science writer and consultant in the scientific and medical nonprofit space. A longtime communications and policy executive for scientific organizations, she currently serves as Director of Policy Research and Education for the Healthspan Action Coalition. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's foremost experts. If there's one universal trait among humans, it's our social nature. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots (St. Martin's Press, 2024). Socially interactive robots will soon transform friendship, work, home life, love, warfare, education, and nearly every nook and cranny of modern life. This book is an exploration of how we, the most gregarious creatures in the food chain, could be changed by social robots. On the other hand, it considers how we will remain the same, and asks how human nature will express itself when confronted by a new class of beings created in our own image. Drawing upon recent research in the development of social robots, including how people react to them, how in our minds the boundaries between the real and the unreal are routinely blurred when we interact with them, and how their feigned emotions evoke our real ones, science writer Eve Herold takes readers through the gamut of what it will be like to live with social robots and still hold on to our humanity. This is the perfect book for anyone interested in the latest developments in social robots and the intersection of human nature and artificial intelligence and robotics, and what it means for our future. Sophia the Robot Tries to Convince the Experts Eve Herold is an award-winning science writer and consultant in the scientific and medical nonprofit space. A longtime communications and policy executive for scientific organizations, she currently serves as Director of Policy Research and Education for the Healthspan Action Coalition. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's foremost experts. If there's one universal trait among humans, it's our social nature. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots (St. Martin's Press, 2024). Socially interactive robots will soon transform friendship, work, home life, love, warfare, education, and nearly every nook and cranny of modern life. This book is an exploration of how we, the most gregarious creatures in the food chain, could be changed by social robots. On the other hand, it considers how we will remain the same, and asks how human nature will express itself when confronted by a new class of beings created in our own image. Drawing upon recent research in the development of social robots, including how people react to them, how in our minds the boundaries between the real and the unreal are routinely blurred when we interact with them, and how their feigned emotions evoke our real ones, science writer Eve Herold takes readers through the gamut of what it will be like to live with social robots and still hold on to our humanity. This is the perfect book for anyone interested in the latest developments in social robots and the intersection of human nature and artificial intelligence and robotics, and what it means for our future. Sophia the Robot Tries to Convince the Experts Eve Herold is an award-winning science writer and consultant in the scientific and medical nonprofit space. A longtime communications and policy executive for scientific organizations, she currently serves as Director of Policy Research and Education for the Healthspan Action Coalition. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's foremost experts. If there's one universal trait among humans, it's our social nature. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots (St. Martin's Press, 2024). Socially interactive robots will soon transform friendship, work, home life, love, warfare, education, and nearly every nook and cranny of modern life. This book is an exploration of how we, the most gregarious creatures in the food chain, could be changed by social robots. On the other hand, it considers how we will remain the same, and asks how human nature will express itself when confronted by a new class of beings created in our own image. Drawing upon recent research in the development of social robots, including how people react to them, how in our minds the boundaries between the real and the unreal are routinely blurred when we interact with them, and how their feigned emotions evoke our real ones, science writer Eve Herold takes readers through the gamut of what it will be like to live with social robots and still hold on to our humanity. This is the perfect book for anyone interested in the latest developments in social robots and the intersection of human nature and artificial intelligence and robotics, and what it means for our future. Sophia the Robot Tries to Convince the Experts Eve Herold is an award-winning science writer and consultant in the scientific and medical nonprofit space. A longtime communications and policy executive for scientific organizations, she currently serves as Director of Policy Research and Education for the Healthspan Action Coalition. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology

The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's foremost experts. If there's one universal trait among humans, it's our social nature. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots (St. Martin's Press, 2024). Socially interactive robots will soon transform friendship, work, home life, love, warfare, education, and nearly every nook and cranny of modern life. This book is an exploration of how we, the most gregarious creatures in the food chain, could be changed by social robots. On the other hand, it considers how we will remain the same, and asks how human nature will express itself when confronted by a new class of beings created in our own image. Drawing upon recent research in the development of social robots, including how people react to them, how in our minds the boundaries between the real and the unreal are routinely blurred when we interact with them, and how their feigned emotions evoke our real ones, science writer Eve Herold takes readers through the gamut of what it will be like to live with social robots and still hold on to our humanity. This is the perfect book for anyone interested in the latest developments in social robots and the intersection of human nature and artificial intelligence and robotics, and what it means for our future. Sophia the Robot Tries to Convince the Experts Eve Herold is an award-winning science writer and consultant in the scientific and medical nonprofit space. A longtime communications and policy executive for scientific organizations, she currently serves as Director of Policy Research and Education for the Healthspan Action Coalition. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   How is our relationship with bots - robots and chatbots - evolving and what does it mean? We're talking with Eve Herold, who has a new book, Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots. Eve is an award-winning science writer and consultant in the scientific and medical nonprofit space. She writes about issues at the crossroads of science and society, and has been featured in Vice, Medium, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Prevention, The Kiplinger Report, and The Washington Post and on MSNBC, NPR, and CNN. In this part we talk about how robots and AI can bring out the best and the worst in us, the responsibilities of roboticists, the difference between robots having emotions and our believing that they have emotions, and how this will evolve over the next decade or more. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.          

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .   How is our relationship with bots - robots and chatbots - evolving and what does it mean? We're talking with Eve Herold, who has a new book, Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots. Eve is an award-winning science writer and consultant in the scientific and medical nonprofit space. She writes about issues at the crossroads of science and society, and has been featured in Vice, Medium, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Prevention, The Kiplinger Report, and The Washington Post and on MSNBC, NPR, and CNN. In this part we talk about how people – including soldiers in combat - get attached to AIs and robots, we discuss ELIZA, Woebot, and Samantha from the movie Her, and the role of robots in helping take care of us physically and emotionally, among many other topics. All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines. Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.          

Social robots are showing positive impacts in the lives of older adults and people living with dementia. Dr. Lillian Hung explores some of the benefits.

Today, we dive into a conversation with award-winning science writer Eve Herold, discussing her latest book, "ROBOTS AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots." This book, hailed by Publishers Weekly as a captivating and clear-eyed analysis of androids' shortcomings, explores the transformative role of socially interactive robots in every aspect of modern life, from friendship and work to love and warfare.In today's episode, we unravel the complex web of human-robot interactions. Eve sheds light on her inspiration behind the book and shares surprising discoveries about our evolving relationship with robots. We delve into the ethical implications of robots capable of reading and reacting to human emotions, the potential of AI and robotics in therapeutic settings, and the future of work and employment in a world increasingly reliant on automation.Join us as we navigate these uncharted waters, examining how robots might change human culture and address issues of loneliness, and even ponder the possibility of robots developing psychopathic personalities. Prepare to be challenged and inspired as we discuss whether our future cohabitants will enhance or endanger our humanity. 

In a job interview, there is one question you are likely to be asked that many people are not prepared to answer. I begin this episode by revealing what the question is and how to craft a powerful response. https://www.forbes.com/pictures/lml45mmjg/why-should-i-hire-you-2/?sh=4c5a502c53d8 Robots seem to have us all mystified. We can't help but relate to them as conscious beings and we tend to think they are smarter than we are, even when we know a robot is just a machine. If you think about that for a moment, you'll realize - that could cause a lot of problems. Here to explain those problems, why they are so interesting and what we can do to solve them is Eve Herold. She is an award-winning science writer and consultant in the scientific and medical nonprofit world and she is author of a book called ok Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots (https://amzn.to/3ObcBzb) Who wouldn't like to have a bit more confidence? Actually, you may already have all the confidence you need according to Viv Groskup. Viv is a writer, comedian and executive coach and she is author of the book Happy High Status: How to Effortlessly Be Confident (https://amzn.to/3vQYj0h). Listen as she explains why confidence is a bit elusive and how to use the confidence you already have to project a better you.  Has it been a while since you last went to have your eyes checked? An eye exam does more than just check your prescription for glasses or contacts. Listen as I reveal how a good eye exam can actually help identify other serious medical problems. https://www.allaboutvision.com/eye-exam/cost-and-how-often/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! NerdWallet lets you compare top travel credit cards side-by-side to maximize your spending! Compare and find smarter credit cards, savings accounts, and more today at https://NerdWallet.com Indeed is offering SYSK listeners a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Human beings are hardwired for social connection – so much so that we think of even the most basic objects as having feelings or experiences. (Yup, we're talking to you, Roomba owners!) Social robots add a layer to this. They're designed to make us feel like they're our friends. They can do things like care for children, the elderly or act as partners. But there's a darker side to them, too. They may encourage us to opt out of authentic, real-life connections, making us feel more isolated. Today on the show, host Regina G. Barber explores the duality of social robots with Eve Herold, author of the new book Robots and the People Who Love Them: Holding on to Our Humanity in an Age of Social Robots. Curious about other innovations in technology? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

Can we create wise robots? Kerstin Dautenhahn joins Igor and Charles to dive into the intriguing world of social robots, the finer points of “Robotiquette,” and the potential role such robots can play in supporting therapeutic treatments. Igor reflects on the limits of robot-based wisdom, Kerstin reveals the potential of Generative AI like ChatGPT to generate false information about her own professional identity, and Charles considers the perils of socially awkward machines. Welcome to Episode 58. Special Guest: Kerstin Dautenhahn.

#robot #robotics #artificialintelligence Professor Nadia M Thalmann has pioneered research into virtual humans over the last 30 years. She obtained several Bachelor's and Master's degrees in various disciplines (Psychology, Biology and Biochemistry) and a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Geneva Nadia founded the interdisciplinary research group MIRALab at the University of Geneva. Her global domain of research is Virtual Humans and Social Robots. She has acquired a great experience of collaborative research through her strong participation to more than 50 European Research Projects. Together with her PhD students, she has published more than 500 papers and books on Virtual Humans and Social Robots with research topics such as 3D clothes, hair, body gestures, emotions modeling, and medical simulation. she revolutionized social robotics by unveiling the first social robot Nadine that can have mood and emotions and remember people and actions Besides directing her research group MIRALab in Switzerland, she is presently a Professor and Director of the Institute for Media Innovation (IMI) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. http://www.nadiathalmann.com/http://www.miralab.chhttps://ch.linkedin.com/in/nadia-magnenat-thalmann-975552a Time Stamp 0:00 to 04:36- Intro, Metaverse & Virtual Humans 04:36 to 09:21- Virtual Humans & Applications 09:21 to 20:06- MiraLabs- Nadine the Humanoid Social Robot 20:06 to 24:26- Engineering & Software Challenges of building humanoid robots 24:26 to 30:41-Impact of Autonomous Military Robots & Social Humanoid Robots 30:41 to 36:01-Cutting edge of humanoid robots & AI 36:01 to 38:39- Advice & why more women need to choose tech as a career 38:39 to 43:51-Future of Robotics & how it will impact society Watch our highest-viewed videos: 1-DR R VIJAYARAGHAVAN - PROF & PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR AT TIFR India's 1st Quantum Computer- https://youtu.be/ldKFbHb8nvQ 2-TATA MOTORS- DRIVING THE FUTURE OF MOBILITY IN INDIA- SHAILESH CHANDRA- MD: TATA MOTORS-https://youtu.be/M2Ey0fHmZJ0 3-MIT REPORT PREDICTS SOCIETAL COLLAPSE BY 2040 - GAYA HERRINGTON -DIR SUSTAINABILITY: KPMG- https://youtu.be/Jz29GOyVt04 4-WORLDS 1ST HUMAN HEAD TRANSPLANTATION- DR SERGIO CANAVERO - https://youtu.be/KY_rtubs6Lc 5-DR HAROLD KATCHER - CTO NUGENICS RESEARCH Breakthrough in Age Reversal- https://youtu.be/214jry8z3d4 6-Head of Artificial Intelligence-JIO - Shailesh Kumar https://youtu.be/q2yR14rkmZQ 7-STARTUP FROM INDIA AIMING FOR LEVEL 5 AUTONOMY - SANJEEV SHARMA CEO SWAAYATT ROBOTS - https://youtu.be/Wg7SqmIsSew 8-MAN BEHIND GOOGLE QUANTUM SUPREMACY - JOHN MARTINIS  - https://youtu.be/Y6ZaeNlVRsE 9-BANKING 4.0 - BRETT KING FUTURIST, BESTSELLING AUTHOR & FOUNDER MOVEN - https://youtu.be/2bxHAai0UG0 10-E-VTOL & HYPERLOOP- FUTURE OF INDIA" S MOBILITY- SATYANARAYANA CHAKRAVARTHY https://youtu.be/ZiK0EAelFYY 11-HOW NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTING WILL ACCELERATE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - PROF SHUBHAM SAHAY- IIT KANPUR- https://youtu.be/sMjkG0jGCBs 12-INDIA'S QUANTUM COMPUTING INDUSTRY- PROF ARUN K PATI -DIRECTOR QETCI- https://youtu.be/Et98nkwiA8w Connect & Follow us at: https://in.linkedin.com/in/eddieavil https://in.linkedin.com/company/change-transform-india https://www.facebook.com/changetransformindia/ https://twitter.com/intothechange https://www.instagram.com/changetransformindia/ Listen to the Audio Podcast at: https://anchor.fm/transform-impossible https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/change-i-m-possibleid1497201007?uo=4 https://open.spotify.com/show/56IZXdzH7M0OZUIZDb5mUZ https://www.breaker.audio/change-i-m-possible https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMjg4YzRmMC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw Don't Forget to Subscribe www.youtube.com/@toctwpodcast

How should we conceive of social robots? Some sceptics think they are little more than tools and should be treated as such. Some are more bullish on their potential to attain full moral status. Is there some middle ground? In this episode, I talk to Paula Sweeney about this possibility. Paula defends a position she calls 'fictional dualism' about social robots. This allows us to relate to social robots in creative, human-like ways, without necessarily ascribing them moral status or rights. Paula is a philosopher based in the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. She has a background in the philosophy of language (which we talk about a bit) but has recently turned her attentio n to applied ethics of technology. She is currently writing a book about social robots. You download the episode here, or listen below. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify and other podcasting services. Relevant LinksA Fictional Dualism Model of Social Robots by PaulaTrusting Social Robots by PaulaWhy Indirect Harms do Not Support Social Robot Rights by Paula #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; } /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Subscribe to the newsletter

Kate Darling is a researcher at MIT Media Lab interested in human robot interaction and robot ethics. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – True Classic Tees: https://trueclassictees.com/lex and use code LEX to get 25% off – Shopify: https://shopify.com/lex to get 14-day free trial – Linode: https://linode.com/lex to get $100 free credit – InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off – ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod to get 3 months free EPISODE LINKS: Kate's Twitter: http://twitter.com/grok_ Kate's Website: http://katedarling.org Kate's Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/grok_ The New Breed (book): https://amzn.to/3ExhBuf Creativity without Law (book): https://amzn.to/3MqV5F3 LuLaRobot (paper): http://drive.google.com/file/d/1PtYpkDQaQVPbhQIc6wcCC50JKWVsDo3k/view PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple

Rana el Kaliouby is a pioneer in the field of emotion recognition and human-centric AI. She is the founder of Affectiva, deputy CEO of Smart Eye, and author of Girl Decoded. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Mizzen+Main: https://mizzenandmain.com and use code LEX to get $35 off – Weights & Biases: https://lexfridman.com/wnb – Notion: https://notion.com – InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off – ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod to get 3 months free EPISODE LINKS: Rana's Twitter: https://twitter.com/kaliouby Rana's Instagram: https://instagram.com/ranaelkaliouby Rana's Facebook: https://facebook.com/RanaelKaliouby Affectiva (website): https://affectiva.com Smart Eye: (website): https://smarteye.se Girl Decoded (book): https://amzn.to/3DnRAN4 PODCAST INFO: Podcast website:

Lee St. James may not have "invented" the social robot concept but her application of it in Assisted Living and Residential Care is nothing short of genius. Lee began exploring the concept when her own father was retreating into dementia in another city.  While the robot's development was too late for her father, Lee quickly realized "Mindy" has a place and a purpose in several areas of residential care.  Their welcome has been immediate and enthusiastic. In this episode, Lee explains the potential of the social robots to reduce social isolation, loneliness and stress for older adults and introduces us to her current Mindy. This is definitely a must-share episode, especially as we learn all the issues that arose in ElderCare during the pandemic and, as we all age, we'll now have a headstart on being "handlers" if we go to live in a complex with a few Mindy's roaming the Rec Therapy department. Meet Lee and Mindy at https://socialrobots.ca/ on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Social.Robots/ on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0vp2MOxEzGri0iAq4zqScw  

Clip: Cynthia Breazeal "The Killer Billion Dollar Business Case For Social Robots" by Marwa ElDiwiny

Clip: Cynthia Breazeal "Social Robots" by Marwa ElDiwiny

Cynthia Breazeal "Social Robots" by Marwa ElDiwiny

Watch this Live Interview: Click Here Lee St James is the founder and President of Social Robots, a social enterprise that offers robot helpers to engage and entertain residents and staff at retirement homes and long-term care facilities. Lee is passionate about the opportunity for companion robots to relieve social isolation, boredom, and loneliness for older adults. Her vision is to support the mental health of residents and staff in assisted living by leveraging social robots to help people be more connected with each other. As a tech-savvy consultant and entrepreneur with over 25 years of business experience, Lee was most recently the General Manager and Vice-President of a design studio that developed robot apps for banking and automotive.  She founded Social Robots in 2019 after seeing first-hand the impact of social isolation on her father as he struggled with Lewy-Body dementia. She has an Honors Business degree from Western University in London, Ontario, Canada and an MBA from INSEAD (pronounced: In-see-add) in France. Website: Social Robots Want to see this and many more interviews LIVE! Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: Click Here Want more great ways to support the channel. Consider becoming a VIP Youtube Channel Sponsor and reap some really awesome perks....TODAY! Subscribe & Sponsor Here! You can support the show via several different ways. You can support us on Youtube or on our newest platform "GLOW" just by clicking the link below: Support the Show  

This week Harry continues to explore advances in "digital therapeutics" in a conversation with Paolo Pirjanian, the founder and CEO of the robotics company Embodied. They've created an 8-pound, 16-inch-high robot called Moxie that's intended as a kind of substitute therapist that can help kids with their social-emotional learning. Moxie draws on some of the same voice-recognition and voice-synthesis technologies found in digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Home, but it also has an expressive body and face designed to make it more engaging for kids. The device hit the market in 2020, and parents are already saying the robot helps kids learn how to talk themselves down when they're feeling angry or frustrated, and how to be more confident in their conversations with adults or other kids. But Moxie isn't inexpensive; it has a purchase price comparable to a high-end cell phone, and on top of that there's a required monthly subscription that costs as much as some cellular plans. So it feels like there are some interesting questions to work out about who's going to pay for this new wave of digital therapeutics, and whether they'll be accessible to everyone who needs them. Pirjanian discussed that with Harry, along with a bunch of other topics, from the product design choices that went into Moxie to the company's larger ambitions to build social robots for many other applications like entertainment or elder care.Please rate and review The Harry Glorikian Show on Apple Podcasts! Here's how to do that from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:1. Open the Podcasts app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. 2. Navigate to The Harry Glorikian Show podcast. You can find it by searching for it or selecting it from your library. Just note that you'll have to go to the series page which shows all the episodes, not just the page for a single episode.3. Scroll down to find the subhead titled "Ratings & Reviews."4. Under one of the highlighted reviews, select "Write a Review."5. Next, select a star rating at the top — you have the option of choosing between one and five stars. 6. Using the text box at the top, write a title for your review. Then, in the lower text box, write your review. Your review can be up to 300 words long.7. Once you've finished, select "Send" or "Save" in the top-right corner. 8. If you've never left a podcast review before, enter a nickname. Your nickname will be displayed next to any reviews you leave from here on out. 9. After selecting a nickname, tap OK. Your review may not be immediately visible.That's it! Thanks so much.TranscriptHarry Glorikian: Hello. I'm Harry Glorikian, and this is The Harry Glorikian Show, where we explore how technology is changing everything we know about healthcare.Two weeks ago, in our previous episode, I talked with Eddie Martucci, the CEO of a company called Akili Interactive that's marketing the first FDA-approved prescription video game. It's called EndeavorRx, and it's designed to help kids with ADHD improve their attention skills.It's one of the first examples of what some people are calling “digital therapeutics.”And this week we continue on that topic—but with a conversation about robots rather than video games. My guest Paolo Pirjanian is the founder and CEO of Embodied.They've created an 8-pound, 16-inch-high robot called Moxie that's intended as a kind of substitute therapist that can help kids with their social-emotional learning.Moxie draws on some of the same voice-recognition and voice-synthesis technologies found in digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Home. But it also has an expressive body and face designed to make it more engaging for kids.Moxie Video Clip: Hi, I'm Moxie. I'm a robot from the GRL. That's the Global Robotics Laboratory. This is my first time in the human world. It's nice to be here. Oh, where is here, exactly? It's a pretty big world for a little robot.Harry Glorikian: Moxie hit the market in 2020, and parents are already saying the robot helps kids learn how to talk themselves down when they're feeling angry or frustrated, and how to be more confident in their conversations with adults or other kids.But just like EndeavorRx, Moxie isn't inexpensive. The robot has a purchase price comparable to a high-end cell phone, and on top of that there's a required monthly subscription that costs as much as some cellular plans.So, it feels like there are some interesting questions to work out about who's going to pay for this new wave of digital therapeutics, and whether they'll be accessible to everyone who needs them.Paolo and I talked about that, as well as a bunch of other topics—from the product design choices that went into Moxie, to the company's larger ambitions to build social robots for many other applications like entertainment or elder care.So here's my conversation with Paolo. Harry Glorikian: Paolo, welcome to the show.Paolo Pirjanian: Thank you. Hey, for having me on the show.Harry Glorikian: Paolo, you're the co-founder and CEO of a company called Embodied. And and you guys are in the field of, I'm going to call it educational robotics. But this is not your first robotics company, right? Can you can you start by filling in listeners about your history in the consumer robotics field?Paolo Pirjanian: Absolutely. Yeah. So I actually got my education in Denmark. I got a PhD in A.I. and robotics and then moved to the US actually to work at NASA's JPL. Which was a childhood dream job. Shortly thereafter, I got approached by Bill Gross of Idealab, who started one of the earliest incubators, who wanted to start a robotics company. So I joined that company as the CTO originally and then eventually became the CEO. We developed Visual Slam Technology, which is a vision based, camera based ability for a robot to build a map of the environment and know how to navigate it autonomously. That company in 2012 was acquired by iRobot. And we integrated that technology across Roomba and the other iRobot portfolio products to allow them to be aware of the environment and know how to navigate around the home, primarily for cleaning the floors. I was a CTO there for a couple of years and then decided to move on to do something that's been a childhood dream, to really create AI friends that can help us through difficult times in our lives.Harry Glorikian: But one of the projects you worked on, and correct me if I'm wrong, was the Sony's Aibo Robot Dog, right? It's not necessarily educational, but it was aimed at kids. So what sort of drew your focus on robotics for education and socialization, I want to say.Paolo Pirjanian: Yes, correct. Sony Aibo, the robotic dog, my previous company, we developed a computer vision technology for it that enabled the robot to be able to see things and interact with things in the environment. And it was an amazing product, actually, the Sony Aibo. And I've always actually had interest in let's call it mental health. And of course, my craft is AI and robotics. And so after my last company was acquired, I decided the timing is now to go pursue that childhood dream of creating robots that can actually help us with mental health. So we don't categorize ourselves as education in the strict sense because we do not really focus on STEM education. We focus on for children. The first product is for children. It's called Moxie, and it's helping them with social emotional skills, learning, which in layman's term you could describe as EQ, emotional intelligence skills versus IQ, which are more related to STEM type education.Harry Glorikian: Yeah. And it's it's supposed to complement traditional therapy if I was reading everything correctly.Paolo Pirjanian: Exactly. Exactly. We don't believe in replacing humans in the loop. We want people to be treated by humans. But given the shortage and cost of mental health services, there's always room for complementing that with AI and other technologies. And that's what we are doing.Harry Glorikian: So if I ask the question, is Moxie more like a toy that's supposed to be fun, or is it a tool that's supposed to be therapeutic or correct some help help a child that's using it or is it both?Paolo Pirjanian: It's primarily a tool to help children with social emotional learning, things that you would go to a therapist for. The analogy that I use that may be helpful here is really Moxie is a tool to deliver therapy to children. But we we have to make it fun enough for the child to want to take that pill. So in a way, if you use pharmaceuticals as an analogy, a pill usually for children is sugar coated because you want them to take the pill to deliver the medicine to them. So the same way here, Moxie has a lot of fun activities and interesting things that attract a child to want to interact with Moxie. And then during those interactions, Moxie will find the opportunity to deliver techniques and therapies, for instance, to teach the child about mindfulness, teach them about emotion regulation, teach them social skills, to teach them about empathy and kindness, talking about your feelings and so on.Harry Glorikian: I know many adults that may need Moxie for sure. With all those categories you mentioned. Right.Paolo Pirjanian: I agree.Harry Glorikian: But but let's talk about the range of challenges, problems or issues that you've designed Moxie to help with. So can it help with relatively mild issues like shyness, or is it designed to help kids with more severe issues like, Autism Spectrum Disorder or all of the above?Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah, no, it's first of all, you're talking about the audience that it's appropriate for. Obviously, children that have been diagnosed with any neurodevelopmental challenges such as autism need to be trained on social emotional skills. But neurotypical children also can benefit from it. Actually in our customer base, we see a roughly 50-50 split between children that have mental, behavioral developmental disorders. And in the 50% are children that you would call neurotypical. But yet we know even within neurotypical children, they have to deal with things such as stress, anxiety, sometimes even depression. Covid obviously did not help it. It exacerbated a lot of mental health issues for every child, including adults, by the way, as you pointed out. And these techniques and tools that you use from therapy are really the same independent of the diagnosis. Now, some children may need more help with social skills. Let's say if there is a child on the autism spectrum, they may not be very comfortable making eye contact, which is an important social skill to have. When you're interacting with someone, you want to look them in their eyes and Moxie will help them, for instance, with that. And that's maybe something that a neurotypical child doesn't need. So Moxie will focus more on helping them with things such as coping skills, with coping with stress, coping with anxiety or managing anxiety, or even social skills. Like you can talk to Moxie about bullying and it will allow you to talk about it and understand how to navigate that and teach you skills about how to protect your own personal space. A lot of these foundational skills are are the type of skills that social emotional learning includes.Harry Glorikian: So. Let's talk a little bit more about the actual product. And because this is a podcast, I'm sort of like need to talk through some of the features, right? Because they everybody can't see it. But so on the hardware side, you know, the arms, the waist, it bends, the rotating ears, the rotating base, the ears, the face, the speakers, the camera, you know, the program that animates the face and gives Moxie, a personality, the computer vision elements. Right. And then all the scripts of all the different interactions. Right, you know. Why was it important to give Moxie an LCD screen as a face rather than mechanical mouth or eyes.Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah. Let me start maybe take a couple of steps back for the audience, as you said there are no visuals here. Think of Moxie as a AI character brought to real life. Right. So think of it as a, sorry, as a cartoon character brought to real life. So think of a cartoon character that has physical embodiment and it can talk to you. It can smile back at you. We can interact with you with body language and emotions and so on. To your question as to why it required a LCD display. We could potentially consider creating a mechanical face that can have enough expressivity, but that can add a lot of costs on one hand. On the other hand, if not done well enough, it can become uncanny and creepy. So we decided that the LCD display that, by the way, is very is curved because we did not want it to look like a monitor stuck in the head. But it was integral to the design. So it's curved and looks like a face. And what you see on the face is an animated character, Moxie's character, which is integrated very well with a hardware industrial design. So you can provide much more freedom of expression from facial expressions. And especially for children, you want to have a robot that has the ability to show facial expressions. By the way, the intonation of the voice will change as well, based on the type of conversation and the emotion we are trying to capture in the conversation.Paolo Pirjanian: And then the other question, actually, a macro level question becomes embodiment, why did this need to be embodied? Why physical? Why not just a digital character on a screen? Well, so, evidence from neuroscience, from MRI, fMRI scans shows that when we interact with something that has physical embodiment and agency, it triggers our mirror neurons, our imitation neurons are triggered at a much higher level and much wider level than when you're interacting with something just on a screen. And the implication of that is that things you can learn through interaction with the embodied agency have a deeper impact in terms of retention of the information, something that we may be able to anecdotally relate to during COVID. All education went online and the post mortem on that was that te quality of education that was delivered online doesn't compare to what happens in the classrooms. And that's, again, the same thing when it's not embodied. You don't feel that emotional connection. You don't feel an obligation. Many children will just turn off the monitor and walk away, whereas with something that's physically embodied, you feel you can't do that. It has feelings, you feel it has a perspective. You can't just turn it off. By the way, on Moxie, if you look at it closely, there are no buttons on Moxie. There is no input device on moxie like a keyboard or a touch screen or anything else. The way you interact with moxie is the way we interact with each other, using conversation, body language, intonation of voice, emotion, facial expressions and so on. There is one switch actually on the bottom of the robot that you don't see. That's for emergency situations in case something goes wrong. For certification reasons, we have to put that physical switch to turn it off if something goes wrong.Harry Glorikian: So not having played with it does, and only watching the video online, Moxie's voice synthesized like Siri or is it prerecorded? Like, how does it sound?Harry Glorikian: It's synthetic. Yes. So, yeah. So we cast the character of Moxie, decided what this character stands for, what are its values, what is the background story? And then based on that, decided the voice of Moxie, what it should be. And then the way you develop the synthetic voices that you take in neural network and train it based on a lot of samples that we captured from a voice actress in a studio recording hundreds and hundreds of hours of speech from a script. So we have this script and we know how it sounds based on the character's voice recording, and that gets fed into a deep neural network that is trained over and over again until it models that voice. So that later I can just give a text and it will generate a synthetic voice that sounds exactly like that character.Harry Glorikian: And then Moxie seems to emit a lot of sound effects and music. Does that element enhance the product somehow?Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah. So we can underline mood and so on with sound effects or background music. For instance, one of the activities Moxie will suggest if the child is talking about things that are have to do with stress and so on, is a mindfulness journey. Where it will ask you to close your eyes. Imagine you are in a forest or other places as well. There's a library of them. Let's say you're in a forest, listen to the wind and then it will start playing some sound effects in the background and calming music to get the child to imagine they're in that space. For some children that have high sensitivity disorders to certain stimuli like sound, the parents can actually, through a parent app, provide that information which will adjust the settings. In that case, Moxie will actually not use sound effects or any jarring effects that may disturb that child.Harry Glorikian: Interesting. So. Simple question, but is it battery operated? I mean, how long does it last on a single charge? Does it plug in?Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah, it's battery operated because the child usually likes to move it around. You carry the round almost like a baby on your arm. If you remember the days where we had young babies, it was literally ergonomically, it sits exactly right on your arm very nicely. And it has a battery that can run for hours of active usage. And then at night, usually like your cell phone, you plug it in any charges overnight.Harry Glorikian: So, you know, this begs the question of where did the idea of Moxie really come from? Because you don't decide on a whim to build a product this complex. You know, how did you persuade yourself and your investors that the technology is at a point where, you know, it could really make a difference with kids, you know, that have social emotional development issues?Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah. I mean, the idea was sparked probably early in my early childhood, I would say. So, very briefly at a very early age due to a war, my world was turned upside down. And unfortunately, I had to flee my my homeland and seek refuge in another country where I looked different, sounded different and was different. Right? And and unfortunately, as such, you do get rejected by the society. You have a harder time in school. You get exposed to racism and rejection and all these things. So. I remember during that time I saw the first animated short by Pixar. Which was Luxo Jr., the two lamps, mama lamp and baby lamp playing with a ball. Which blew me away that a computer can generate millions of pixels on the screen that are moving to create, to induce or elicit such emotion in the audience. So that inspired me to actually seek education in computer science and robotics and A.I. because before that, as many immigrants you were taught that you were going to be a doctor, so that that's.Harry Glorikian: Or a lawyer.Paolo Pirjanian: Lawyer comes second, but obviously doctor first. So so that inspired me actually to buy a computer and start coding by myself. And I started learning coding and then I decided I'm going to do well in high school so I can get into university and pursue my education. And I did. And to be honest with you, this has been something I've been wanting to do for since I can remember. My previous company, as I mentioned, Evolution Robotics, that was a Idealab company and I was the CTO then became the CEO. I wanted it to do it then, but that's almost a decade ago, or maybe slightly more than a decade ago. We even tried. It was not possible. Absolutely not possible. I remember back then. Just to use an example that I think most people can relate to, voice recognition for even a single command was hard. All of us have had in-car navigation systems with a voice assistant that you would press a button, hold it down and say navigation, and would pull up navigation and say, Enter your address. It will enter the address. And you would have, to by the time you were done, enter the address because it would constantly misunderstand you and then give you options. Did you say A, B or C and no, no, no. I didn't say that. By the time you were done entering the address, you were at the destination. So that was state of the art only a decade ago. Just for voice recognition. Same thing with computer vision.Paolo Pirjanian: My specialty actually was computer vision. Computer vision. Also, we couldn't recognize things very well. And the advancement that has happened in deep neural networks due to the increase in compute power, due to increase to labeled data sets that are available through many sources from YouTube and the Internet and so on. We have been able to solve age-old problems that for decades we were struggling with So it was not possible. The other piece that was probably not possible was that I was not ready as an entrepreneur probably to take on such a colossal challenge of building a product like this. So the stars aligned around 2015 when I decided to leave iRobot and said, You know what? The time is probably right now. And and fortunately, I was able to get some investors that believed in the vision of creating AI characters, AI friends that can help children with social emotional development. And obviously, this technology platform, we will in the future use it for also helping the elderly population with loneliness and Alzheimer's and dementia and so on. We have just scratched the surface with our first products, right? And there is a lot more work to do. But today it's possible. We have proven it. We have a product in the market. A five year old can will interact with it for months at a time without any human intervention. So yeah, so it was a series of events brewing over the last 30, 40 years for this to become possible today.[musical interlude]Harry Glorikian: Let's pause the conversation for a minute to talk about one small but important thing you can do, to help keep the podcast going. And that's leave a rating and a review for the show on Apple Podcasts.All you have to do is open the Apple Podcasts app on your smartphone, search for The Harry Glorikian Show, and scroll down to the Ratings & Reviews section. Tap the stars to rate the show, and then tap the link that says Write a Review to leave your comments. It'll only take a minute, but you'll be doing a lot to help other listeners discover the show.And one more thing. If you like the interviews we do here on the show I know you'll like my new book, The Future You: How Artificial Intelligence Can Help You Get Healthier, Stress Less, and Live Longer.It's a friendly and accessible tour of all the ways today's information technologies are helping us diagnose diseases faster, treat them more precisely, and create personalized diet and exercise programs to prevent them in the first place.The book is now available in print and ebook formats. Just go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and search for The Future You by Harry Glorikian.And now, back to the show.[musical interlude]Harry Glorikian: I mean, just looking at the system, there's probably a lot of innovations that were required to put Moxie together. And so. I don't know, maybe you can give us a few, you know, like "Oh, my God" moments that took place in this, right? I mean. I don't know if it's the physical movements. I don't know if it's the, you know, personality or the scripts. But, you know, give us the highlights of what you think was like the big breakthroughs that made this possible.Paolo Pirjanian: Yeah. So there are many, many, many, many pieces of technology that we had to invent or partner for to make this happen. So   what I mentioned, deep neural networks, generally speaking, in the field of AI have advanced to the point where we can have very reliable speech recognition technology, for instance, right? Where you have an accent or not, you're speaking loud or soft and so on, you have background noise and so on, it will be able to transcribe what you're saying pretty accurately. There are still errors, but it's pretty accurate. It's accurate enough, let's put it that way. The next stage of the conversation pipeline is actually understanding. Now you have a transcript of what was said. Now I need to understand the semantics of what was meant, what was the intent behind this, this string of characters, and that's natural language understanding. In that area, Embodied has made huge advancements because we have to be able to understand what the child is saying. And the state of the art when we started is defined by Siri and Alexa and Google Home, where it's very command and response. "Alexa, play music for me. Alexa, how is the weather? Alexa, tell me a joke. Alexa, read a story or read the news for me." And so on. So short utterances and and direct mapping to a function that the device can do. Whereas in our case it's not about this transactional command and response, it's about relation and social interaction. So the child, Moxie will actually ask and encourage the child. It says, "So how was your day to day?" There is no way any human being can script all the possible answers that you could expect to hear because you could basically say anything possible to that question.Paolo Pirjanian: So we had to develop natural language understanding that can understand what was said no matter what was said, and provide a relevant response. Because if you don't, if the robot says something that's absolutely not related to what the child wanted to talk about, then children get disappointed. They say, well, this thing is a dumb robot. It doesn't doesn't understand me. And they will dismiss it, right? The illusion of intelligence breaks away very quickly as soon as you you misunderstand or say something off script, let's say. So we had to develop a combination of systems to be able to address that. Another major challenge, and this was actually much bigger than I thought, we spent a lot of time on this challenge to solve. Again, it has to do with interaction using Alexa as an example also, and Siri as well as Google. They all have this notion of a wake word, Hey, Google, hey Siri or Alexa. When you say this keyword known as a wake word, the device is actually at the, when it's on standby, it's putting all of its attention to look for that keyword before it does anything else. So as soon as you say it, a couple of things happen. It's almost like turning on a switch to say, I'm going to speak, right? So number one, you're telling it, I'm going to say something now. Number two, as soon as you have said that phrase, these things have multiple microphones on them. And the mic array allows you to be able to be informed and focus your attention on the location from which you heard this phrase. With doing that, you can also filter out anything that's in the background. So you focus the attention of the device on that location of the user that said Alexa. And then you say a phrase and then it processes and executes the action. In our case, in social interaction, it will not be appropriate if you had to say Moxie in every volley of the conversation. Every time you want to say a sentence to me, you would start by saying Paolo and I and I would look at you, and then you would say something, and then I would stop listening. And then you say, Paolo, for every sentence, right. That would that would be a very awkward social interaction. So we had to solve that problem. It's a tough problem to solve. And we use a combination of cameras to know where the child is, the voice, where it's coming from, and what was being said to focus the attention of Moxie on the person that's engaged with it so that Moxie doesn't respond to the TV or mom and dad maybe having a conversation on the phone over there and it filters all of that automatically, without the need for having a wake word phrase. And I can go down the list. There is many, many more. But this is just examples of the type of things we have to solve.Harry Glorikian: So, you know, I think some people might make the argument that kids should really be learning their social and emotional skills from other human beings. From a parent, from a teacher, from their peers, maybe their therapist if they have one. You know, how can a robot fit into that picture in a healthy, productive way? You know, how would you respond to the potential criticism, which I'm sure you've heard before. When a parent who buys Moxie for their kid, are they offloading their parental responsibilities?Paolo Pirjanian: That's an absolutely valid concern and a good question to ask. And obviously, even before inception of the company, I personally myself was thinking about this because there is a there's a contradiction in saying that a child that is not very good at social interaction, let's put them in front of a robot, they'll get better at it. There's a contradictory element to that potentially. Right. So let's put it this way. In the extreme case, what if the child does not have the ability to have interaction with their peers? Right. So they do not get the opportunity to interact with other peers from which they're actually learning to hone in their social skills. Well, that happened during the pandemic. There's a huge mental health crisis happening in the US now that will take years for us to to address. That was because children were locked in their home without the ability to socialize with other children because of worries about being getting COVID, right. So now pandemics are rare events that hopefully don't happen that often. But now let's put ourselves in the shoes of children that are, for various reasons, are not successful in providing social interactions. An extreme case is a child on the autism spectrum. That does not have the right skills to have social interactions nor interpret social cues in a conversation. Let's say if you're annoyed at someone on the spectrum, it's likely that they may not even understand that you're annoyed at them and they may keep saying the same thing or doing the same thing. That's going to make you more and more agitated or the other end of the spectrum, which is not as severe.Paolo Pirjanian: My example when I was a child. And I lived in a foreign country where I was different. I had an accent. I looked different. I came from a different cultural background and other kids didn't want to play with me. And there's everything in between. Right? So then. What do we do? Well, you can have therapies and that's what we do. There's a massive shortage of therapists. If you have a child, usually the way this works is that your school teacher will come and say, we think your your child may be on the spectrum or your child may have ADHD or your child have some other neurodevelopmental challenge. You should get your child diagnosed. Okay. Hopefully no one has to try this. The waiting list for getting diagnosed is minimum six months, minimum six months. And that's if you have connections and good providers and all these things. While imagine for six months your mind as a parent, you're like, dying. What the hell is going on with my child? I've got to figure this out quickly. Once your child is diagnosed and you spend 6000, 7000 hours on that, then you've got to find providers. There's a huge shortage of providers, and even when you get to the provider, there is a massive cost associated with it. So typically children on the spectrum, as an example, get diagnosed at the age of three or so. Ideally, actually, because the sooner you can intervene, the better the outcomes. And when they're diagnosed, they will be recommended to seek 20 to 40 hours of therapy per week. 20 to 40 hours of therapy per week. Yeah.Harry Glorikian: They're not doing anything else.Paolo Pirjanian: No. And many times, many times schools are supposed to provide it. But you have one or two special needs teachers that are to deal with the whole population of kids on the spectrum in their school as an example. So they're not going to get 20, 40 hours per week. The cost of therapy is super expensive. Insurance also has to pay for it. Nowadays, they're mandated to, but the cost still adds up. On average, a family will spend $27,000 out of pocket per year, even despite insurance coverage. So not everyone has access. And also if you live in rural areas and so on, you don't have access. So. Why not have an automated system that can do this, at least filling the gap? Right. We think of Moxie as a springboard to the real world. So we want to use Moxie as an opportunity to for the child to open up to Moxie, use that as an option, teach them a number of techniques for how they can be more successful in social interactions, and then Moxie will actually encourage them to go in the real world and experience these things and come and tell it about what what, how it went. So we use Moxie as a springboard to the real world. There is another phenomena that happens, and I don't know how to describe this. You may actually have more insights in neuroscience than I do. Children, especially children that have neurodevelopmental challenges, open up to a robot like Moxie better than they do to humans.Paolo Pirjanian: Let's take autism as an example again. I remember the very first experiment we did with our first prototype. We took that prototype to a family's home. They had a ten year old son on the spectrum, and we put Moxie down. At the time we did not have the AI yet. It was the robot remotely controlled by one of our therapists. On an iPad they were typing what the robot should do and say. The child immediately opened up and start talking to Moxie. And if you look at that child, you say. And you know, as a matter of fact, I asked Mom: "I don't see anything wrong with your child. Why do you think he's on the spectrum?" And he says, well, you have to see him how he treats his peers. He doesn't open up to them. He doesn't want to talk to them. When he comes home from school it takes me, mom, a couple of hours to "find," quote unquote, my child. Tuning into the channel. So they shut down. And there's a few reasons for for sort of, I think, anecdotal or maybe rational reasons to why that is. One is that children that are on the spectrum, they completely understand feelings and emotions and so on. They are not very good at expressing themselves or or showing their feelings, but they understand if they are being rejected or teased out in a conversation and so on. So they shut down. A robot is non-judgmental, right? They understand that it's a safe, non-judgmental space.Paolo Pirjanian: The other part is that when someone like me who comes with a warmer blood and too many gestures and intonation, voice and expressive, it's too much there's too many signals going on. And that's overwhelming to a lot of children on the spectrum. And they shut down. It's too much. I cannot deal with this. Right. And so hence, a robot is finding social doing social exercises and experiences on training wheels. And helping them develop those muscles and get better at how to handle different situations when they go in the real world to interact with their peers or other people in their circle, social circle, to be successful. And that success will hopefully breeds more success. So ideally we are successful when people actually stop using our product. And as a matter of fact, we have parents reaching out to us and say, my child could not stand up in front of their classroom to say a word. Now she stands up and gives a whole presentation and we have stopped using Moxie. Thank you so much for the help that that's what what it is. It's like it's stepping stone. It's training wheels for social emotional learning so that they can have a chance of being successful, because otherwise they do not have the chance to to have these exercises to learn. We learn a lot by interacting with each other.Harry Glorikian: So the company describes Moxie as just the first iteration of a larger platform that I think you call SocialX. So what is SocialX and what other kinds of products do you envision coming out of it?Paolo Pirjanian: Yes. SocialX is our technology platform, which which allows a machine to interact with us using real conversation, eye contact, body language, gestures, intonation of voice and and for the machine to do that as well as understand you on all those channels as well. That's what social platform is. The name SocialX is a juxtaposition to user experience, UX with an emphasis on the social experience. Right? We are creating a social experience. We are not just creating a user experience where you can push buttons or say a command, play music. Tell me the weather, what's the stock market like? But rather social interaction which involves social skills, emotion, skills, empathy and so on. And this is our first iteration. It's going to get exponentially more advanced. With every single user we add to our customer base, it allows us to improve SocialX because the data and the interactions that we can experience allows us to keep improving our algorithms to get better and better and better. So we decided to start with children because they are the most vulnerable in our society and we thought that's where we can have the most impact. The other end of the spectrum, where we become vulnerable again is when we are aging, right? And mental health is extremely important for aging people. And loneliness leads to a lot of mental health challenges that lead to a lot of physical challenges.Paolo Pirjanian: We know this. The surgeon general of U.S. said a couple of years ago that loneliness for elderly is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes in terms of the health implications it has. And it's true. Again, during COVID, a lot of elderly that were alone suffered massively because they were high risk for COVID. Even my mom, who lives 5 minutes away from me, I didn't visit her for a few months until we sort of figured out that we think we know how to handle COVID so it was safe to to meet meet each other. It's extremely difficult. So that's the other end of the spectrum that we intend to address. And then in between every age group, in between that, from your teens to your aging, every person in their lifetime deals with mental health challenges. As a matter of fact, the US population, 17 percent of the population at any given time deals with mental health challenges stress, depression, suicidal thoughts and so on. And having a life coach that can help you through these difficult times, we believe can have a huge impact. So eventually with those three pillars, we will be able to help the entire population. You can go beyond mental health, which is what we are focused on, because that's where we think we can have the biggest impact you could imagine.Paolo Pirjanian: You go to Disney Park and you could have an interactive character coming up to you that's not a person inside a suit, but it's actually an animated character that's walking around and talking to you and entertaining you. You can imagine going to a hotel lobby where your intake to the lobby will be serviced by an interactive character, AI character. By the way, we are also working with hospitals and schools. Right now for hospitals we work with University of Rochester Medical Center. We are currently doing a pilot of using Moxie to help children, diabetic children, to educate them about how to treat themselves and how to adhere to their treatment plan. And then there is a number of other use cases that we are going to expand into, including intake to the hospital, dealing, sort of holding their hands and making sure they are not stressed out, coming to the hospital for the first time, pre-op and then post-op. Also a lot of complications you want to avoid by making sure there is someone to remind you about your care plan and so on. So to be honest with you, the sky is the limit. But the three areas we are focused on is children, elderly and then everyone in between that suffers from mental health or loneliness type of challenges.Harry Glorikian: Yeah, there are so many other applications that I can think of that I would, you know that I could use my self. So hopefully, that will come into play because this would be something interesting for me even to interact with, depending on, you know - Don't forget to work out or, you know, there's something that you interact with regularly. Right. But so let's go to sort of the crux of the some of the issues. Right. It's it's not an inexpensive device. I mean, it does a lot. So you can't expect that it's going to be inexpensive. Right. It's it's $999 to purchase plus a separate monthly subscription of about, what is it, $39 per month for a minimum of 12 months. And so how how do you get this out to a larger group of people that really need it. Is it subsidized purchases? Is it insurance? What are you guys thinking of from a business model perspective?Paolo Pirjanian: Yes. So we actually launched the product in the second half of last year for the first time and we sold out. But I agree with you that it would be much better if it was more affordable, because we don't want this to only be a product available for high income families, for rich kids to use a derogatory term maybe. We want it to be available to every every child. And for that to happen, there is a couple of different strategies we are pursuing. One is that once we get to a scale of efficacy studies that are convincing enough that we can get insurance, potentially insurance coverage to cover it or at least subsidize part of it to make it more affordable. The other approach is that we are working with bigger institutions such as hospitals and schools and libraries, by the way, which can buy it and make it available to their population. As an example, this library actually came to us, which is a very interesting business model that addresses the reach to the society that may not be high income. The library bought a fleet of Moxies from us, and they're lending them out to their society, to their members as a book. So a child gets to take Moxie home for a month and then bring it back, which is awesome because we have, by the way, we have done efficacy studies and it shows that even within a month you can see significant improvement on a lot of these social emotional skills.Paolo Pirjanian: But ultimately, that's that's how it goes. And also, just to put it in perspective to two examples. One is that robots of this nature....By the way, there is nothing like Moxie because the technology has not existed today, but people have tried, actually, SoftBank has a subsidiary called SoftBank Robotics that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing this robot called Pepper that costs $14,000 to buy and $2,000 a month to subscribe to it. Yeah. So we are orders of magnitude better than that. And that was part of the design principle that we said we want to be on par with an iPhone ownership of a cell phone. Buy it for roughly about $1,000. And you pay roughly about $50 a month in subscription. So we met that goal, which was a major accomplishment, very hard to do, but we are not satisfied with that because as I said, this has to be available. The other part of the other example is that if you have a child that needs therapy and if this cuts your therapy by a handful of therapy sessions, it pays for itself. Right? Again, ideally, we will have insurance pay for it. And so that will take some time. As you know, sort of navigating the medical fields and insurance organizations and so on will take some time, but we will get there eventually.Harry Glorikian: Yeah, I mean, I recently interviewed the CEO of Akili Interactive, Eddie Martucci, and they are the first group to get an FDA approved prescribed video game for children between eight and 12 years old with certain type of ADHD. And so, you know, they're using the prescription route as a way to have somebody pay for the clinical trials and everything else and the product itself. So I know that this business of robotics is not for the faint of heart. I mean, there's there's many different companies out there like Jibo, which was out here. Or I think there was a company in in San Francisco called Anki that, you know. You didn't pick an easy one, that's for sure, Paolo.Paolo Pirjanian: Definitely not. Definitely not.Harry Glorikian: But but, you know, I you know, I wish you incredible luck. I mean, this this thing sounds so exciting. I mean, it brings out, like, the Star Trekkie guy in me and wants to interact with it and have it do certain things or say certain things or or maybe even like interact with my wearable and be able to see something and then make a comment to me as I'm using it. So I can only wish you incredible luck and success.Paolo Pirjanian: Thank you. I need it and I appreciate it.Harry Glorikian: Excellent. We'll talk soon.Paolo Pirjanian: Talk soon, thank you so much for having me.Harry Glorikian: That's it for this week's episode. You can find a full transcript of this episode as well as the full archive of episodes of The Harry Glorikian Show and MoneyBall Medicine at our website. Just go to glorikian.com and click on the tab Podcasts.I'd like to thank our listeners for boosting The Harry Glorikian Show into the top three percent of global podcasts.If you want to be sure to get every new episode of the show automatically, be sure to open Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player and hit follow or subscribe. Don't forget to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And we always love to hear from listeners on Twitter, where you can find me at hglorikian.Thanks for listening, stay healthy, and be sure to tune in two weeks from now for our next interview.

Welcome to TechTime Radio with Nathan Mumm, the show that makes you go "Hummmm" Technology news of the week for May 1st  – May 7th, 2022.Today on the show, we have Lee St James, the Founder and President of Social Robots, joining the show today to discuss how their robots are looking to improve interaction with retirement communities and nursing homes. Why does she believe AI and Robots can fill in this gap? We will ask this and more. Next, Meta to release four more VR headsets by 2024. Is one model not enough now? SpaceX Starlink is busy, Coca-Cola gets hacked, and Revil, the Ransomware group, is back. We have our listener's favorite segment, "Letters," this week with emails sent to us from listeners across the globe. In addition, we have our standard features, including "This Week in Technology," | "Mike's Mesmerizing Moment," - and can AI robots replace the companionship of humans. And, of course, our "Pick of the Day" whiskey tasting. So sit back, raise a glass, and Welcome to TechTime with Nathan Mumm. Episode 99:  Starts at 1:13 --- [Now on Today's Show]: Starts at 4:01 --- [Top Stories In The First Five Minutes]: Starts at 8:08Meta to release four more VR headsets by 2024, including a 'Laptop For Your Face' -https://tinyurl.com/2p966m3n SpaceX Starlink has 150,000 daily users in Ukraine 5 weeks after being activated, government official says- https://tinyurl.com/yckwm42u Coca-Cola investigates hacker group's claims of a breach and data theftREvil ransomware group is back with a vengeance - https://tinyurl.com/yckwm42u  --- [Pick of the Day - Whiskey Tasting Review]: Starts at 18:47Maker's Mark 46 Cask Strength | 109.6 Proof | $65.00 --- [Technology Insider]: Starts at 21:27Lee St James, the Founder and President of Social Robots, joining the show today to discuss how their robots are looking to improve interaction with retirement communities and nursing homes.  --- [This Week in Technology]: Starts at 36:58May 2, 1983Microsoft's Original MouseMicrosoft introduces the Microsoft Mouse for IBM and IBM-compatible PCs. The mouse featured two buttons and is available by itself or bundled with the new Microsoft Word software, which Microsoft would release in September of that year.Microsoft will manufacture nearly one hundred thousand units of the device, but will only sell five thousand before introducing a second, more popular version of the device in 1985. This was the first software company to bundle hardware and software in the same packaging.--- [Marc's Mumbles Whiskey Details]: Starts at 42:34--- [Letters]: Starts at 44:56Mike and Nathan share this week's informative emails that were received during the week. This includes scams, phishing emails, and all-out mistruths disguised as legitimate emails. --- [Mike's Mesmerizing Moment brought to us by StoriCoffee®]: Starts at 53:06 --- [Pick of the Day]: Starts at 54:25Maker's Mark 46 Cask Strength | 109.6 Proof | $65.00 Mike: Thumbs Up Nathan: Thumbs Up

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This week, please join author Vasan Ramachandran and Associate Editor Mercedes Carnethon as they discuss the article "Temporal Trends in the Remaining Lifetime Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Among Middle-Aged Adults Across 6 Decades: The Framingham Study." Dr. Carolyn Lam: Welcome to Circulation on the Run, your weekly podcast, summary and backstage pass to the journal and its editors. We're your co-hosts. I'm Dr. Carolyn Lam, Associate Editor from the National Heart Center in Duke National University of Singapore. Dr. Greg Hundley: And I'm Dr. Greg Hundley, Associate Editor, Director of the Pauley Heart Center at VCU Health in Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Greg, I'm so excited about today's feature paper. You see, I trained at the Framingham Heart Study and today's feature paper talks about the temporal trends in the remaining lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease among middle aged adults across six decades in the Framingham Heart Study. Truly a landmark study and a discussion nobody wants to miss. But first, let's talk about the other papers in today's issue, and I understand that you've got one ready. Dr. Greg Hundley: You bet Carolyn. I'll get started first. Thank you. So my first paper comes from Dr. Daniel Mark from Duke University and it refers to the ISCHEMIA trial. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Ooh, could you please first remind us what is the ISCHEMIA trial and are you presenting a substudy, is that correct? Dr. Greg Hundley: Right, Carolyn. So the International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches, or ISCHEMIA, compared an initial invasive strategy with an initial conservative strategy in 5,179 participants with chronic coronary disease and moderate or severe ischemia. And this sub study of the ischemia research program included a comprehensive quality of life analysis. Dr. Carolyn Lam: So very interesting. What did they find Greg? Dr. Greg Hundley: Right, Carolyn. So this study included 1,819 participants. 907 in the invasive, 912 in the conservative. And collected a battery of disease specific and generic quality of life instruments by structured interviews at baseline. And then at three, 12, 24 and 36 months post randomization, and then finally at study closeout. Now Carolyn, these assessments included an angina related quality of life assessment from the 19 item Seattle Angina Questionnaire, a generic health status assessment, an assessment of depressive symptoms, and for North American patients, cardiac functional status from the Duke Activity Status Index, or DASI. In this study, Carolyn, in terms of results, the median age was 67 years and about 20% were women and about 16% were nonwhite. So Carolyn, getting to the results. The estimated mean difference for the SAQ 19 summary score favored invasive therapy. And remember the SAQ 19 was the Seattle Angina Questionnaire. Dr. Greg Hundley: Next, no differences were observed in patients with rare or absent baseline angina. Next, among patients with more frequent angina baseline, those randomized to invasive had a mean point higher score on the SAQ 19 summary score than the conservative approach, with consistent effects across all of the SAQ subscales including physical limitations, angina frequency and quality of life health perceptions. For the DASI, and remember DASI refers to the Duke Activity Status Index, no difference was estimated overall by treatment. But in patients with baseline marked angina, DASI scores were higher for the interventional arm. Whereas patients with rare or absent baseline angina showed really no treatment related differences. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Oh, okay. So a lot of results. What's the take-home message, Greg? Dr. Greg Hundley: Right, Carolyn. Glad you asked. So in the ISCHEMIA comprehensive quality of life substudy, patients with more frequent baseline angina reported greater improvements in the symptom physical functioning and psychological wellbeing dimensions of quality of life when treated with an invasive strategy. Whereas patients who had rare or absent angina baseline reported no consistent treatment related quality of life differences. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Wow. Thank you, Greg. Very interesting indeed. Now from angina to now cholesterol. Now, cholesterol guidelines typically prioritize primary prevention statin therapy based on 10 year risk of cardiovascular disease. Now the advent of generic pricing may in fact justify expansion of statin eligibility. Moreover, 10 year risk may not be the optimal approach for statin prioritization. So these issues were looked at in this next paper by authors led by Dr. Kohli Lynch from Northwestern University and colleagues who estimated the cost effectiveness of expanding preventive statin eligibility, and evaluated novel approaches to prioritization from a Scottish health sector perspective. A computer simulation model predicted long term health and cost outcomes in Scottish adults, age 40 years or more. Dr. Greg Hundley: So Carolyn, what did they find? Dr. Carolyn Lam: The advent of generic pricing has rendered preventive statin therapy cost effective for many adults. Absolute risk reduction guided statin therapy, which is based on 10 year cardiovascular disease risk and non HDL cholesterol levels, is cost effective and would improve population health. Whereas age stratified risk thresholds were more expensive and less effective than alternative approaches to statin prioritization. So guidelines committees may need to expand statin eligibility and consider new ways to allocate statins based on absolute risk reduction rather than 10 year risk thresholds. Dr. Greg Hundley: Very nice Carolyn. Always important, new information regarding statin therapy. Well Carolyn, my next paper comes to us from the world of preclinical science. And Carolyn, as you know, the regenerative capacity of the heart after myocardial infarction is limited. And these authors led by Dr. Tamer Mohamed from University of Louisville previously showed that ectopic introduction of Cdk1, CyclinB1 and Cdk4, CyclinD1 complexes and we'll refer to those now as 4F, promoted cardiomyocyte proliferation in 15 to 20% of infected cardiomyocytes in vitro and in vivo and improved cardiac function after MI in mice. So Carolyn, in this study using temporal single cell RNA sequencing, the investigative team aimed to identify the necessary reprogramming stages during the forced cardiomyocyte proliferation with 4F on a single cell basis. And also using rat and pig models of ischemic heart failure, they aim to start the first preclinical testing to introduce 4F gene therapy as a candidate for the treatment of ischemia induced heart failure. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Oh, wow Greg. So what did they find? Dr. Greg Hundley: Several things, Carolyn. First, temporal bulk and single cell RNA sequencing and further biochemical validations of mature HIPS cardiomyocytes treated with either LAcZ or 4F adenoviruses revealed full cell cycle reprogramming in 15% of the cardiomyocyte population at 48 hours post-infection with 4F. Which was mainly associated with sarcomere disassembly and metabolic reprogramming. Second Carolyn, transient overexpression of 4F specifically in cardiomyocytes was achieved using a polycistronic non-integrating lentivirus encoding the 4F with each driven by a TNNT2 promoter entitled TNNT2-4F polycistronic-NIL. Now this TNNT2-4F polycistronic-NIL or control virus was injected intra myocardial one week after MI in rats, so 10 per group, and pigs, six to seven per group. Dr. Greg Hundley: And four weeks post-injection the TNNT2-4F polycistronic-NIL treated animals showed significant improvement in left ventricular injection fraction and scar size compared with the control virus treated animals. And four months after treatment, the rats that received TNNT2-4F polycistronic-NIL still showed a sustained improvement in cardiac function without obvious development of cardiac arrhythmias or systemic tumorigenesis. And so Carolyn this study advances concepts related to myocellular regeneration by providing mechanistic insights into the process of forced cardiomyocyte proliferation and advances the clinical feasibility of this approach by minimizing the oncogenic potential of the cell factors, thanks to the use of a novel transient and cardiomyocyte specific viral construct. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Wow. What a rich study. Thanks so much, Greg. Dr. Greg Hundley: Well, Carolyn, how about if we see what else and what other articles are in this issue. And maybe I'll go first. So there's a research letter from Dr. Wu entitled Modeling Effects of Immunosuppressive Drugs on Human Hearts Using IPSC Derived Cardiac Organoids and Single Cell RNA Sequencing. Carolyn, there's an EKG challenge from Dr. Yarmohammadi, entitled “Fast and Furious, A Case of Group Beating in Cardiomyopathy.” And then finally from Dr. Tulloch, a really nice Perspective entitled “The Social Robots are Coming, Preparing For a New Wave of Virtual Care in Cardiovascular Medicine. Dr. Carolyn Lam: Oh, how interesting. Well, also in the mail back is an exchange of letters of among Drs. Lakkireddy, Dhruva, Natale, and Price regarding Amplatzer Amulet Left Atrial Appendage Occluder versus Watchman Device for stroke prophylaxis, a randomized control trial. All right. Thank you so much, Greg. Shall we go on to our feature discussion now? Dr. Greg Hundley: You bey. Welcome listeners to our feature discussion today. And we're so fortunate we have with us today, Dr. Vasan Ramachandran from Boston University and our own Associate Editor, Dr. Mercedes Carnethon from Northwestern University in Chicago. Welcome to you both. And Vasan, let's start with you. Could you describe for us some of the background information pertaining to your study and what was the hypothesis that you wanted to address? Dr. Vasan Ramachandran: Thank you, Greg, first of all for having me. So we know two facts. One is that heart disease and stroke disease death rates and incidents are declining over the last six decades in the United States. Juxtapose against that is also the observation that there is rising incidence of obesity and overweight, and also a rising burden of diabetes. There are a lot of advances in our ability to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, as well as high blood sugar. So we wanted to ask the question, given the historic trends in control awareness of risk factors and their control, interrupted by this escalating burden of obesity, overweight, and diabetes, what is the lived experiences of people over time in terms of the risk of developing heart disease or stroke using a metric we call as the remaining lifetime risk of developing heart disease or stroke. Dr. Greg Hundley: The hypothesis you wanted to address? Dr. Vasan Ramachandran: The hypothesis we wanted to address was that perhaps the decline in the incidence of heart disease and stroke may have decreased over time given the escalating burden of overweight, obesity and diabetes. Dr. Greg Hundley: Very nice. And can you describe for us your study population and your study design? Dr. Vasan Ramachandran: Thank you, Greg. So the Framingham Heart Study is one of the oldest running epidemiological studies in the world. We have multiple cohorts. The study began in 1948 with the original cohort, the offspring cohort enrolled in 1971, third generation cohort in 2002, and two minoritized cohorts in the 1990s and 2002. So we have an observation period of different cohorts over a six decade period. So we asked the question, if you were a participant in the Framingham study between 1960 and 1979 and then 1980 to 1999, and then 2000 to 2018, what was your lifetime risk of experiencing a heart disease or stroke in the three different time periods? Is it going down, is it steady or is it going up? Dr. Greg Hundley: Very nice. And so, Vasan, describe your study results. Dr. Vasan Ramachandran: Look, what we found was if you look at the first, the 20 year period from 1960 to 1979, and compare that with the latest, which is 2000 to 2018, in the initial time period, the lifetime risk of developing heart disease or stroke in a man was pretty high. It was about one in two. And that for a woman was about one in three. So when you come to the latest epoch, what we find that the risk of one in two men had dropped to about one in three men in the latest decade. For women, the risk declined from what was one in three in the earlier epoch to one in four. So approximately there was about a 36% reduction in the lifetime probability of developing heart disease or stroke across the six decade period of observation. Dr. Greg Hundley: Very nice. And so help us a little bit, put the context of your results into what that might mean for us today as we are managing patients with atherosclerotic disease. Dr. Vasan Ramachandran: Yes, Greg. What it means is that the permeation of the advances in science in terms of the screening of risk factors, awareness of risk factors, medications to lower these risk factors effectively, the clinical trials that have given us these new medications, they may have translated into a reduction in risk over time. That the lived experience of people in the later decades is better in terms of having a lower risk of heart disease or stroke as the consequence of multiple advances that have happened in heart disease and stroke. Dr. Greg Hundley: Well, thank you so much Vasan. Well listeners, now we're going to turn to our Associate Editor, Mercy Carnethon. And Mercy, you have many papers come across your desk. What attracted you to this particular paper and how do you put these results really in the context of other science pertaining to risk associated with populations that may have atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease? Dr. Mercedes Carnethon: Thanks so much for that question, Greg. And again, Vasan, I really thank you and your team for bringing forth such outstanding research. You know, as cardiovascular disease epidemiologists, we were all raised and taught that what we know about risk factors for cardiovascular disease are based on the Framingham cohort. And so I was really excited to see this very comprehensive piece of work that characterized what the Framingham study has identified and also leverages the unique characteristics of a study that started in 1948. Dr. Mercedes Carnethon: So, you know, we're almost 75 years in and actually has the ability that cross sectional studies don't have to look over longer periods of time at risk. And you know, when we think about papers that excite us, that we really want to feature in circulation, they are papers that teach us something new. And I will say there were aspects of this work that confirmed what I had heard but had not seen using empirical data. Namely that the remaining lifetime risks for developing cardiovascular disease were going down over time, and they were going down secondary to better management and recognition of the risk factors that the Framingham cohort study had really been instrumental in identifying in the first place. Dr. Mercedes Carnethon: There were surprising elements of the paper. The surprising elements being that I think as you brought up earlier, we were concerned that risk factors that were on the rise, such as obesity, were threatening these increases in life expectancy. And it was really nice to see that the findings held, even in the face of rising risk factors. And just to summarize, what I really like about this piece when we situate it within circulation, where we are addressing clinical treatment factors, where we're also featuring clinical trials and even other epidemiologic studies, is that your work identifies for us the overall context in which the clinicians who read the journal are thinking about managing patients and where we're going. It highlights our successes, but it also really brings up what we need to do next. And I look forward to hearing from you about where you think this may be headed. Dr. Greg Hundley: Well, Mercy, you're teeing us up for that next question. Vasan, what do you think is the next study or studies that need to be performed in this space? Dr. Vasan Ramachandran: Thank you, Greg and Mercy, for your kind comments. Like I shared, this is a success story for a predominantly white population in the Northeast. We are very much aware about the heterogeneity and the geographic variation in heart disease burden in our country. So one of the success stories interpretation might be this represents the upper bound. What can happen to a population that is compliant with screening of risk factors, awareness of risk factors, treatment and healthcare access. I think the next set of studies should broaden the study population to bring in additional populations that are more diverse, that are also followed up over a period of time to assess and put the current observations in the appropriate context. Do we see similar findings longitudinally in other cohorts with non-white participants? Is it different, is their lived experience different? If so, why? And that could inform us how we can reach the success story and replicate it across the entirety of our country. Dr. Greg Hundley: And Mercy, do you have anything to add? Dr. Mercedes Carnethon: I do. You know, I really like that focus on broadening to whom these results are applicable. We've undergone a lot of shifts within our country and also around the world. You know, circulation, we have a worldwide readership. I would love to see this sort of work replicated across different countries to the extent that we have the data to do so, recognizing that limitation. But I'd love to see work focus on comparing how these things change in low income countries, middle income and high income countries, so that we can really think about resource allocation and find strategies to try to replicate the successes that we are seeing based on the data from the Framingham heart and offspring studies. Dr. Greg Hundley: Excellent. Well listeners, we really appreciate the opportunity to get together today with Dr. Vasan Ramachandran from Boston University and our own Associate Editor, Dr. Mercedes Carnethon from Northwestern University in Chicago. And really appreciate them for bringing us these epidemiologic data from the Framingham cohort, indicating that over the past decades, mean life expectancy increased and the remaining lifetime risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease decreased across individuals in the cohort, even after accounting for increasing incidences of other cardiovascular risk factors like obesity and smoking. Well on behalf of Carolyn and myself, we want to wish you a great week and we will catch you next week on the run. Dr. Greg Hundley This program is copyright of the American Heart Association, 2022. The opinions expressed by speakers in this podcast are their own and not necessarily those of the editors or of the American Heart Association. For more, please visit ahajournals.org.

Social robots started as Lee saw the problem of loneliness and isolation in retirement homes, as her own father needed more and more care. And she took up the cause right before Covid-19 hit, creating Social Robots and piloting them in several locations. She has learned an amazing number of lessons building a company, testing new ideas and new markets, and creating solutions to significant problems many of us are facing in our families today. From starting simple, to prioritizing privacy, to collaboration with retirement home staffs to create meaningful experiences. Lee's Bio:Lee St James is a tech-savvy consultant and entrepreneur with over 25 years of business experience across a range of industries including consumer packaged goods and software. She is the founder and President of Social Robots, a technology start-up that is exploring how robots can engage, entertain, and educate residents, family members and staff at retirement homes and long-term care facilities. She is passionate about the opportunity for companion robots to relieve social isolation and loneliness and to help people be more connected with each other.Lee has an Honors Business degree from Western University (London, Ontario) and a Masters degree in Business Administration from INSEAD (Fontainebleau, France). As an experienced general manager, collaborative team leader and serial entrepreneur, Lee has expertise in digital transformation, strategic marketing and robots. Links from the show:www.socialrobots.calee@socialrobots.ca LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/social-robotsTwitter:  https://twitter.com/social_robotsFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Social.Robots   (FB page for Mindy too: https://www.facebook.com/mindy.stjames.71/)Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/social.robots/Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0vp2MOxEzGri0iAq4zqScwBeing Mortal by Dr. Atul Gawande:  http://atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/Happily Ever Older by Moira Welsh: https://ecwpress.com/products/happily-ever-olderMore by Kyle:Follow Product by Design and Kyle on TwitterKyle's writing on MediumProduct by Design on MediumSign up for Kyle's Product Thinking Newsletter for more updates.Like our podcast, consider Buying Us a Coffee

Lee St James is a tech-savvy consultant and entrepreneur with over 25 years of business experience across a range of industries including consumer packaged goods and software. She is the founder and President of Social Robots, a technology start-up that is exploring how robots can engage, entertain, and educate residents, family members and staff at retirement homes and long-term care facilities. She is passionate about the opportunity for companion robots to relieve social isolation and loneliness and to help people be more connected with each other.  Lee has an Honors Business degree from Western University (London, Ontario) and a Masters degree in Business Administration from INSEAD (Fontainebleau, France). As an experienced general manager, collaborative team leader and serial entrepreneur, Lee has expertise in digital transformation, strategic marketing and robots. Michael and Lee have a great time talking about how these robots are impacting the world of retirement living. How do robots affect humans in these environments? Hear direct from Lee about the reactions folks have to these bots.https://www.socialrobots.ca

Thinking about a relationship with a social robot? Markets have a few surprises left…. The man and car of the year – not much of a surprise. PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

What if technology could directly support your mother or father during their vulnerable years in between our visits?Join the Get Hired Up Podcast to hear tech-savvy consultant, entrepreneur, and founder of Social Robots, Lee St. James and me, discuss her invention of the social robot, Mindy. Lee St. James is a tech-savvy consultant and entrepreneur with over 25 years of business experience across a range of industries including consumer packaged goods and software.She is the founder and President of Social Robots, a technology start-up that is exploring how robots can engage, entertain, and educate residents, family members and staff at retirement homes and long-term care facilities. She is passionate about the opportunity for companion robots to relieve social isolation and loneliness and to help people be more connected with each other. As an experienced project manager, collaborative team leader, and serial entrepreneur, Lee has expertise in digital transformation, strategic marketing and robots.

Our world is evolving so quickly and the skills that students needed to thrive just a few years ago are fast becoming obsolete. So what 21st century core competencies do students need to learn to succeed in our modern world?In this episode we are joined by two inspiring teachers, Enzil and Samaya, who, despite working in very different places – The Bahamas and Nepal - and teaching very different subjects - drama and technology –  both prioritize strategies that develop 21st century skills.Our special guest today, framing the stories that Enzil and Samaya share, and providing us with his definition of 21st century skills, is Goren Gordon, a researcher studying the potential of  social robots to promote curiosity in children. “21st century skills [are] sometimes called super skills. They're called the 4 Cs, so it's about creativity, communication and collaboration and critical thinking… I would actually add another one, which is the 5th C, which is curiosity.” - Goren.First we hear from Enzil in The Bahamas, who teaches drama in Nassau's Saint Andrew International School:“If we, as teachers, think beyond the content, we can invite [students] to bigger places or broader places that allow them to feel connected to real world experiences. And in that way, it's not ignoring the content, it's actually adding value to the content.” - Enzil.Next we hear from Samaya who is developing a STEM workshop with Karkhana, a Nepalese social enterprise dedicated to showing children creative ways of using science and technology.“Most of the time we'll be focusing on a full skill, so the child learns how to think critically… So we know how we can communicate with people, how we can communicate our ideas. Also, how to be creative. Also, the most important thing is that we can't do the work alone. We need a team, we need to know how to work in a group that means collaboration.” - SamayaOn today's podcast:Developing skills that can be applied to the real worldBuilding skills through STEM educationSocial robots and the skills they help children learnDeveloping a sense of community around robotsLinks:Email: podcastteachersvoices@gmail.comBold.expertKarkhanaGoren GordonSaint Andrew school To find out more about today's guests, and for more episodes featuring other teachers and their stories, visit https://bold.expert/podcasts

Was kommt dabei heraus, wenn sich Forscher aus den Bereichen Mensch Computer Interaktion, Schulpädagogik, Psychologie, Informatik und Volkswirtschaft über Lehre und Lernen in der Zukunft unterhalten? Richtig, eine kurzweilige, coole und inhaltreiche Podcast-Folge

Was kommt dabei heraus, wenn sich Forscher aus den Bereichen Mensch Computer Interaktion, Schulpädagogik, Psychologie, Informatik und Volkswirtschaft über Lehre und Lernen in der Zukunft unterhalten? Richtig, eine kurzweilige, coole und inhaltreiche Podcast-Folge

Lee St. James founded Social Robots to apply her tech background to a social issue, close to home.  Not able to spend as much time with her father while seeing the effects of social isolation, she took action. Through this social enterprise, and with help from an Investment Readiness Program grant from the Community Foundations of Canada, through the Oakville Community Foundation, Lee is piloting the use of a friendly robot, complete with a tablet for interactive apps and photos, to engage seniors in retirement homes and long term care facilities.  She's addressing issues of social isolation and boredom while providing an interesting tool for Rec leaders to engage with their senior residents, and seeing positive results.  With a heightened awareness of the issue of social isolation due to COVID-19, Lee is seeing growing interest, and particularly from post-secondary institutions looking to embed this in their curriculum to prepare the next generations for better supporting our seniors populations.       Resources  Social Robots: https://socialrobots.ca   Investment Readiness Program through the Oakville Community Foundation:https://www.theocf.org/initiative/irp/   Lee St. James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leestjames   Sheridan College – Centre for Elder Research:  https://www.sheridancollege.ca/research/centres/elder-research   PARO Therapeutic Robots/Baby Seal:  http://www.parorobots.com   Pepper - Canada's first talking, dancing, emotionally sensitive robot:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6aDHtRFZJ0    . Thank you for listening to Impact Conversations with Lynn Fergusson & Sally Fazal . Find out more about our work at Social Impact Advisors: https://socialimpactadvisors.ca

This week, WGSN Executive Editorial Director Bethan Ryder speaks to author, designer and educator Carla Diana & WGSN's head of Consumer Tech Sarah Housley about the future of social robots. According to consultancy firm Frost and Sullivan the global robotics market will reach $38.3bn by 2024. What's more the global adoption rate of robotics and automation in digital supply chains is set to increase from 39% in 2020 to 73% in 2025. During the pandemic, robots moved from manufacturing lines to service roles; in China the need for touch free services has given the unmanned economy a significant boost and sales of robots are growing at more than twice the rate of global trajectories.

In this episode with talk with Pastor Joshua K. Smith, Author of Robotic Persons: Our Future with Social Robots.ABOUT THE BOOK:Robotic Persons will introduce the evangelical community to the journey of Robotic Futurism and how current and forthcoming AI-driven robots will impact human value and dignity. This book will consider three key areas of robotic development and the existential risks on the horizon for humans in the fields of work, war, and sex. There are risks in the fields of work, because there is a temptation to replace human workers with automation. Current arguments for the benefit of war fighting robots posit that these robots will eliminate war and the risk of war, but there is much more to the story. Arguments for sex and companion robots proffer that they will benefit the fringe community or help those who do not have a relative to care for them, but again there are many ethical and philosophical problems with these arguments. Robotic Persons not only introduces the reader to these issues, but also gives an evangelical response to each. There is presently no evangelical work addressing these critical issues. Robotic Persons will argue that granting legal personhood to qualified robots will further prevent dehumanizing use of robots and protect human dignity and value.

E263 Human Dr. Joshua Smith is an Evangelical pastor and the author of “Robotic Persons: Our Future with Social Robots.” We discuss how he came to his faith and how he views the modern Evangelical. Digging into his book, we discuss the responsibilities, rules and ethics of Artificial Intelligence, “personhood,” Imago Dei, what the future […]

In the near future, there will be a society where we all live among robots. They will be utilised for war, work and sex. In this future, we will need to reexamine how to maintain our human dignity. War without mobilizing humans can either turn us more vicious as we aren't the ones pulling the trigger. Needless to say about work; we are already experiencing the replacement for humans for robotic automation. Sex is a big concern, which I think may end our human civilization. How do we maintain our humanity among all of this radical change without us knowing how to prepare for this future? Am I being pessimistic or should I be having a different perspective. In this episode, I speak with Joshua K. Smith, a pastor and independent researcher who has written a book called Robotic Person - Our Future with Social Robots. We discuss what it is to be human in this time of age where we see this driving force to replace humans with more efficient and productive robots. Through his early adulthood serving for the country in the military, he has seen a different side of humanity and made him examine the ethical value of living with this human creation. Here in this episode we talk about;- What made Joshua Smith the man who he is today- Does robotic warfare dehumanize war- Radical shift in the way we look at jobs- How do we ready our philosophical way of life- Will sexbots end human civilizationGuest: Joshua Smith (Website)Host: Takatoshi Shibayama (LinkedIn | Twitter)Music: ShowNing (Website)

De’Aira Bryant is a doctoral student in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research areas span the fields of human-robot interaction and artificial intelligence. Recently she programmed a report for the HBO movie "Superintelligence." She talks to Scott about how robots and can cater to specific audiences, especially children.

Social Robots will be the focus of the discussion today with Oliver Korn the Director of the Affective & Cognitive Institute at Offenburg University in Germany. We talk about where social robots are being used today, and why they can even be a better alternative than living creatures in places like elderly care. The post What is the Future of Social Robots? (With Oliver Korn) Ep #63. appeared first on .

What does it mean to be a person? Should we grant personhood to Robots? What might happen if we do?As we catapult ourselves into 2021 and beyond, we're standing amidst developments in AI and Robotics that are taking place at break-neck speed. As ethical, moral, and philosophical work lags behind - Joshua K. Smith is asking tough questions about how we should live with, and treat Robots.In this one, we talk about:What it means to be a personWhy it might be a good idea to grant legal personhood to a RobotUnderstanding how humans might treat Robots, with or without legal protectionsAn ideal futureFind Joshua:Website: https://www.joshuaksmith.org"Robotic Persons: Our future with Social Robots": https://www.amazon.com/Robotic-Persons-Future-Social-Robots/dp/1664219749/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/jksmith8806

In this 3rd episode of Robotics for All Podcast by AV&R, Michael Muldoon host of our show, with Lentin Joseph, Author, Roboticist and Robotics Entrepreneur from India, take a dive into Open Source Robotics, Social Robots and much more. The Robotics field is hot right now. There is an explosion in startups raising capital not only in traditional areas such as manufacturing, but also in areas traditionally not thought possible like agriculture and transportation. In this conversation Lentin unpacks some of the topics and trends that helped to ignite this growth and we gain some fascinating insight into where some of this innovation is coming from. Learn more about Lentin Joseph and his company Qbotics Labs which helps today's startups: ➡️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/lentinjoseph/➡️ https://robocademy.com/➡️ https://qboticslabs.com/ 

Dr. Julie Robillard is Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of British Columbia and Scientist in Patient Experience at BC Children's & Women's Hospitals. She leads the Neuroscience, Engagement and Smart Tech (NEST) lab and her research focuses on the development and evaluation of technologies to support brain health across the lifespan. We spoke about social media and its effects on our brain, how industry is adapting to both the negative and positive effects of apps, social robots and how they are can improve mental health, and the blessings and curses of an academic life. 

Episode 14 - Pink & Green Robot QueenHosts: Dr. Jeremy Waisome & Dr. Kyla McMullenGuest: De'Aira BryantInstagram - @DeeGotRobotsTwitter - @DeeGotRobotsWeb - www.deairabryant.comDescription: De'Aira is a graduate student conducting interdisciplinary research focused on helping children through social robotics at Georgia Institute of Technology. Listen in as she discusses what it's like to be a “high profile graduate student” traveling the world, sharing how we can leverage artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, ethics, and machine learning to improve outcomes for society. Her experiences now are a long way from those she had in her hometown in South Carolina within the “Corridor of Shame.” Her unconventional route into computing is hilarious but shows just how important mentorship and community is for Black women in computing.Bio:De'Aira Bryant is a third-year computer science Ph.D. student in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research areas span the fields of human-robot interaction, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. As a graduate researcher in the Human-Automation Systems (HumAnS) Lab, her studies explore the possibilities for interactive communication between children and social robots. She is especially passionate about the fair and ethical use of AI for social good and the protection of vulnerable populations. Prior to attending Georgia Tech for her graduate studies, De'Aira graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics. She is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the National GEM Consortium Fellowship, the SLOAN Minority PhD Fellowship and the Lillie J. James Computer Science award. Hailing from the small town of Estill, South Carolina, De'Aira is also an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She has demonstrated a long history of service work and is particularly involved in a variety of computer science and robotics outreach programs. De'Aira even recently gave a TEDx talk entitled “Paying it Forward with Social Robots.” In the long term, she dreams of pursuing a career in academia to further inspire and promote computer science education for all students.