Product Idea: the Fiercely Reciprocal Robot

Mirrors were a phenomenal invention for promoting self-awareness. Mirrors don't make us look great but because they inform us of how we do look, they do make us look better. We can use the image they send back to correct what we can.

Our social image is tougher to discern than our physical one. We can easily see our face in a mirror; it's tougher to see how we come across to different people in different situations. For that I think it'd be interesting to get kids a fiercely reciprocal robot.

One problem with understanding how we come across is that there are different lag times and different probabilities for feedback from people. One person might patiently take our stupid jokes or tendency to volunteer "honest" feedback about how fat they look in that outfit while another will immediately take offense and avoid us later. One will put up with something from us for a couple of months before deciding that it is too much and another will put up with it for life. We don't really know how we come across as social beings and particularly for the young this process of understanding who we are to others can be slow and difficult.

A potential solution to this is the fiercely reciprocal robot. Imagine a robot that a child aged 2 to 14 could interact with. This robot would reciprocate everything from being ignored to telling amusing jokes to giving compliments to insults, handshakes to punches. If the child looked away when the robot was telling a story, the robot would look away; if the child made appropriate noises - the Ooohs and the "oh no's!" to express amazement or alarm, the robot, too, would make such noises. If the child expressed encouragement rather than complaints, the robot would be encouraging rather than complaining.  If the child were happy being with the robot then one might safely assume that the average, typical peer would also be happy to be with the child; if the child were miserable with the robot, then one might safely assume that the average, typical peer would be miserable with the child. Whatever the robot made one feel would be a reflection of what the child made others feel.

Of course you would need a "model good form" mode that might inspire the child to new behaviors. It could not be all reciprocity. Sometimes instruction is needed.

The default mode would be reciprocity, though, and this would be a great teacher and predictor. As it turns out, the average person is fiercely reciprocal. If you are kind to strangers they're generally kind to you; if you are rude to them, they're generally rude to you. For the most part, who we are dictates who people are to us. The fiercely reciprocal robot would be unique mostly in the immediacy and the relentlessness of its feedback.

What Primate Are You? The Sex, Violence & Politics of Chimps & Bonobos

Frans de Waal gives us fascinating look at how we humans resemble the apes he studies. In particular, he contrasts chimps, bonobos and humans in his book Our Inner Ape: A leading primatologist explains why we are who we are. As does probably anyone exposed to the differences between these two, I couldn't help but wonder if humans are not just influenced by primal primate influences but are influenced in different doses. It seems like some people are more like chimps and some more like bonobos.


Chimps are strong and violent, whereas bonobos are more gentle and, well, the euphemism often used is "affectionate." While chimps resolve issues of sex with power, bonobos resolve issues of power with sex. Just about any bonobo has sex with just about any other bonobo. (The females migrate out to other troops around puberty and while the males have a strong relationship with their mothers, this is about the only relationship in the troop that doesn't include sex. So, bonobos are free-loving but not incestuous.) Nerves are calmed and bonds made through sex and affection. By contrast, among the chimps, alpha males have access to the females and the rest of the males have access to females only through the alpha's approval or out of sight of the alpha. Among chimps, sex is a reward for power. 


Chimps dislike the other. When they encounter another chimp group, it is not unusual for one troop of males to systematically single out and kill the males in the other group one by one until all the males are dead, at which point they take possession of the females and territory. Bonobos get frightened when they encounter another group of bonobos, threatening and posturing, but actual injury is uncommon and death rare. Not long after contact, the bonobos are often engaged in acts of grooming and ... well, they are bonobos after all .... sex. 


Finally, chimps are led by an alpha male. This is not a particularly stable leadership because the alpha male can be challenged at any time. This position comes with lots of perks and special privileges so there is great incentive to be the alpha. And these chimps are unafraid to rule by violence.  Bonobos, by contrast, are led by females who do as much mediation with grooming and sex as they do with any violence.  The alpha female is usually one of the most senior females and her position is relatively secure since leadership  appears to depend on wisdom and experience rather than strength and cunning. 


de Waal makes many fascinating comparisons between us humans and these other primates, but it seems to me that political parties could be put on a chimp to bonobo spectrum. Offended at bare breasts in public (whether on beaches or because of breast feeding mothers) but not offended that someone would carry a concealed weapon? You're likely a chimp. Tolerant of immigrants and see them as potentially valuable members of the community rather than threats? You are likely a bonobo. Puzzled that graphic violence is rated R and graphic sex is rated X? You're likely a bonobo. Convinced that sexual mores are too loose and the imposition of more law and order and more severe punishment would make the community stronger? You're probably a chimp.


And if there is truth to this difference - if indeed the differences between us are as ingrained as the differences between chimps and bonobos - it suggests that we're unlikely to change who we are. In fact, to move towards harmony, it seems to me that we have only two options: either the chimps kill all the bonobos, eliminating all the "others"  or the bonobos mate with the chimps, eliminating all differences between chimps and bonobos generation by generation.  Let's just hope that the bonobos take more pleasure in mating with the chimps than the chimps do in killing the bonobos.

Our Inner Ape

I read this fascinating book over the weekend, Frans de Waal’s Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are. Here are a couple of things you might find interesting.

Likewise, watching a group of people, one will quickly notice which individuals act with the greatest confidence, attract the most glances and nods of agreement, are least reluctant to break into the discussion, speak in a softer voice yet expect everybody to listen (and laugh at their jokes!), voice unilateral opinions, and so on. But there are far more subtle status clues. Scientists used to consider the frequency band of 500 hertz and below in the human voice as meaningless noise, because when a voice if filtered, removing all higher frequencies, one hears nothing but a low-pitched hum. All words are lost. But then it was found that this low hum is an unconscious social instrument. It is different for each person, but in the course of a conversation people tend to converge. They settle on a single hum, and it is always the lower status person who does the adjusting. This was first demonstrated in an analysis of the Larry King Live television show. The host, Larry King, would adjust his timbre to that of high-ranking guests, like Mike Wallace or Elizabeth Taylor. Low-ranking guests, on the other hand, would adjust their timbre to that of King. The clearest adjustment to King’s voice, indicating lack of confidence, came from former Vice President Dan Quayle.

The same spectral analysis has been applied to televised debates between the presidential candidates. In all eight elections between 1960 and 2000 the popular vote matched the voice analysis: the majority of people voted for the candidate who held his own timbre rather than the one who adjusted. In some cases, the differences were extreme, such as between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. And only in 2000 did a candidate with a slightly subordinate voice pattern, George W. Bush, get elected. But this was not really an exception to the rule because, as Democrats will relish pointing out, the popular vote actually went to the candidate with the dominant voice pattern, Al Gore.

pp. 56-7.

Anyone who works with animals is used to their uncanny sensitivity to body language. My chimpanzees sometimes know my mood better than I do: it’s hard to fool an ape. One reason for that is the absence of distraction by the spoken word. We attach such importance to verbal communication that we lose track of what our bodies say about us.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks described a group of patients in an aphasia ward convulsed with laughter during a televised speech by President Reagan. Incapable of understanding words as such, aphasia patients follow much of what is being said through facial expressions and body movement. They are so attentive to body nonverbal clues that they cannot be lied to. Sacks concluded that the president, whose speech seemed perfectly normal to the non-patients around, so cunningly combined deceptive words and tone of voice that only the brain damaged were able to see through it.

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