Nearly two years before Japanese fashion titan Yusaku Maezawa embarked on his recent tour of the International Space Station, he made global headlines for launching a worldwide search for a “life partner” to go to the moon with him.
In his online appeal, Maezawa, who was 44 at the time, said he hoped finding a mate would alleviate the “feelings of loneliness and emptiness” that welled up inside him. A few months later, however, he abruptly canceled this search for a romantic partner due to unspecified personal reasons.
Now, it looks like Maezawa is betting that robots can fill the hole in someone’s heart.
The eccentric billionaire, who made his fortune through Japanese fashion e-commerce site Zozotown, announced last month that his investment fund is buying Japanese robotics startup Groove X, which makes a product called Lovot, a combination of the words “love”. ” and “robot”. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The pet-sized companion robots aim to stimulate a “love instinct” in their human customers, according to the company’s website, with potential use cases in nursing homes and with children.
As the pandemic progressed, so-called “emotional” robots also found new purpose in providing companionship for those forced to be separated from others, according to the company.
The wide-eyed devices roll on wheels and have more than 50 sensors to respond to human stimuli (which is distinguished by a thermal camera) through machine learning technology, according to the company.
The robot is currently only available for sale in Japan. Pricing starts at $2,825 for a single device, plus a monthly service fee of approximately $80.
Groove X was founded in 2015 by CEO Kaname Hayashi, a SoftBank veteran who developed the humanoid robot Pepper. The company received funding from the Japanese government and introduced its first Lovot device to the local market in 2019.
These robots do not seek to provide convenience or practical purpose. In fact, the company previously described it as “not a useful robot”. The robot “was born for only one reason – to be loved by you,” the company said.
“I never imagined that a robot would cure me,” Maezawa said in a statement announcing his fund’s acquisition of Groove X. While the robot “can’t clean or work,” Maezawa said he sees “great potential in a presence that can make people feel happy, particularly at this time,” alluding to the global Covid-19 pandemic.
In a statement announcing the sale of its Groove X stakes to the Maezawa Fund, the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, a state-funded investment vehicle for Japanese technology companies, noted that Lovot devices have attracted “significant attention from a of mental health”. The devices have also seen an increase in use in “day care centers, kindergartens and primary schools, as well as in nursing care facilities”.
Maezawa also expressed hope in his statement that Groove X could soon begin delivering its robot beyond Japan. GrooveX declined to make Maezawa or anyone else available for interview, citing scheduling reasons.
It may seem like something straight out of science fiction, but some researchers say there’s a lot of potential for robots to become beloved human companions.
“There is a substantial amount of research on human-robot interaction that shows that people can develop genuine emotional attachments to robots, and that this is something that can be intentionally encouraged through design,” said Kate Darling, a research specialist in robotics. Massachusetts Institute staff. from the Technology Media Lab, told the CNN Business.
“We are very relational creatures,” Darling said. “I have no doubt that people can and will emotionally relate to robots in the future.”
Darling notes that social robots — or robots that are intentionally designed to engage people on a socio-emotional level — have yet to take off in a big way in the United States. “But I think it’s just a matter of time, and clearly these companies do too,” she added.
Still, it likely remains an uphill battle, as evidenced by the challenges another eccentric Japanese billionaire, Masayoshi Son, faced in this market.
Son and his company SoftBank (SFTBF) spent years introducing Pepper, the humanoid robot developed by the founder of Groove X. But last year, SoftBank said it stopped making Pepper, citing lack of demand.
Source: CNN Brasil
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