Matt points us at this fascinating piece about branded robots. Ending with this moment:
"There it is then. The planet’s preeminent ALife & robotics academic, whom has been referred to by Richard Dawkins as “the creator of what I think is the nearest approach to artificial life so far”, is leaving it up to us to answer the big questions:
What is the potential for branded robots? Will they ever form part of a marketing strategy? Will we ever allow robots a part in everyday life?"
One answer is here. It's a dumb ad about slightly smarter ads, but it illustrates the potential perils of these things. Horrible.
This possibility has been haunting me for a while. I wrote about it in Wired back in November:
"...And then, once we've mastered the art of manipulating emotions with machines, robospam will be just around the corner. Think about those charity muggers. Now imagine a robo-chugger -- a cute, sympathetic face, a screen set in the chest showing the tragedy they're trying to prevent accompanied by a swelling, moving soundtrack.
Some facial recognition and a quick bit of database jiggery pokery and the direct debit will be set up and ready to approve before you even get there. Circling above you will be a fleet of tiny UAVs dispensing Starbucks vouchers to anyone whose skin radiates inadequate measures of caffeine. Around the corner will be an out-of-work car assembly robot waving a sign promoting a golf sale."
But, although that is a possible future and some people will be dumb enough to try it. I don't think that'll be the key place where brands and robotics overlap. It'll be in product behaviour.
You could think of it like this:
Branding creates personality by overlaying associations and ideas on products via media.
Robotics will create personality by giving products particular behavioural characteristics.
(Though these are obviously not the only places personality comes from)
It's hard enough at the moment getting product design and marketing to integrate. The next big challenge will be getting the personality to match the look to match the behaviour. Ben Bashford talks about some of the challenges here.
Do you know how to brief behaviour? I don't.
