it's a history that's okay
yeah yeah so our first question is you
know where were you born
where did you grow up and go to school
ah
yeah so i born uh september
29th 1958.
i born in tokyo and
yeah i live in
tokyo in wachiba it's a near in
tokyo area
from the born now so
but in 1993 to 1994
i lived in stanford i
i was a research
visitor in the stanwood university
modern mechanical engineering department
so first i want to say that
my interesting to interesting robotics
began in that
i was in junior high school
so that i'm in japan there are two
famous professors there are only two
professors in japan in robotics area
one is professor kato my mentor
and what i am university and
the other is professor masahiro mori and
the tokyo institute of technology
so i and my friends
in junior high school are very
interested in the
technology advanced technologies
including robotics and
the rocket in the space and
computers so just kind of
high technology it's a
say seven and 1970s
and professor kato
are interested were interested in the
humanoid type robot
and roy samuri are interested in
some biologically inspired robotics
so i am very interested in the human
anti-problem
so i once
wanted to enter the one cedar university
to study with professor gilcatto
and fortunately
i could pass the entrance exam was at
russell university
and when i was a freshman
i visited hoto laboratory
his office
1977
and at that time there's no email
and say we're using the fox or telephone
something so
i couldn't call the cat laboratory
so suddenly i visited directly to
cut laboratories unfortunately he
uh visited china at that time so that he
secretly told me
when that rosa came back to the
university
then let
me know that so
about two weeks uh i got the phone
from the secretary and i visited qatar
laboratory
so professor kato was very busy at the
time
but he guided me and my friend
all around the laboratories but
and also the hand prosthesis
and leg processes
something and very interesting
and in japan
uh university has a system
to enter the laboratory as a
senior and graduate thesis
so but controversy
so many students want to enter so
it is high competition but
successfully i could enter the color
laboratory
and first my
research was about
processes about the
knee underneath so
and when i was entered
after i went to master course
the new project started it's a piano
playing robot
so we called that robot wobble 2
music robot and i
can play piano so there are several
mastercal students but professor kato
asked me to engage this new project
so i
yeah i was a master student but i
uh composed some project team
in the cattle laboratory and also the
joined
several laboratories researching about
vision system and the speech recognition
species
system and the computer system
when i was in the master i think i
entered the master course
now intel and xyro
and motorola
announced 16-bit microcomputers
so before that
we could only use 8-bit microcomputers
so the professor kato was thinking that
we should inc introduce 16-bit micro
computers and
intelligence of the robot is very
important
very important so we
had many meetings and decided to develop
a piano playing robot
so it's one it was one of two
and my
master thesis on the pscc is
about the piano playing robot
and hand coordination and also the
autonomous system
about the piano playing music playing
then the robot can reach a
normal musical score and
determine the fingering
and motion body motions
everything autonomously
so successfully
we could
display the wobble 2 system in the
bike's position and in
1985 so
it continued six months
but every day the robot worked to system
could play
the electronic organ for 6 months
so that is my
phd thesis so
in the cut laboratory we considered as a
future robot
the very important point for the future
robot is a human robot communication
and dexterity and intelligence
so we introduced and designed
all kinds of such functions to the world
system so such
that experience was very very important
for me
to my present research
contents and everything
so how much i think
my mentor professor israel kato died
when i i was in the stanford university
as a visiting scholar
so but that just before that
i and prosecutors started the new
project
about what is a
mind what is the mind of the robot
what is the mind of human
we say kokoro in japanese
coco is a kind of mind or affection
of emotion and intelligence
everything is combined we called kokoro
in japan in japanese so
i decided to try to realize such kind of
kokoro in robots that's a new project
then yeah at that time
we were going to stanford university
i became the
tenure of professors in washington
university
fortunately so my
yeah i said my research
scene
human robot interaction and
human type robot which has some
cocoa or mind or intelligence or
emotion there are two
big projects in my laboratory it
continues for about
20 years or something
so i developed a 21 system
you can see the website on my
laboratories
it's a human symbiotic robot and
with humanoid interaction functions also
the
redevelops one major series was
amoeba it's a typical
example of the robot that has
mind or intelligent functions
so these two things
is very interesting so
many high school students on the other
of course including the student in the
university
interested in such kind of robots and
many students visit my laboratory
and discuss about such kind of robots
it's very fun for me to discuss with
young students to develop the next
generation robot
so now
my in my liberty i have about
30 students and 10
phd and assistant professor and
my staffs in my laboratory
and we try
to realize the real human symbiotic
robot
and also the robot that has my
mind cocoa that is now
my present situation
i want to say that
discussion with other countries people
they have a different culture
to discuss kokoro
mind and human robot interaction
so probably uh
the culture is different then the
sense of value is also different
but robot is a kind of
copy or some say
the artichoke
machine but
[Music]
very resembled or uh orienting to
the human then the discussion is very
important about
mind or intel usually most
most of the researchers interested
intelligence
not emotion that difference comes from
the
difference of the culture but
many japanese people want to discuss
that's kind of cool mind emotion
in the robot in the artificial things
because i think it is very important
because that's the
intelligence original the intelligence
will be emotional
because there are many studies about
running system
but it needs some
evaluation criteria it's based on
some survival or
some benefit for the
robot itself same as
humans so
i'm very interested what is uh origin
know the divine things or the origin of
the intelligence
then we should this
we should study about emotion more
emotions are kind of polishing all the
living things
so now
just now i'm very interested in the such
kind of
functions or original functions in the
robotic system it's a
from the point of view why meaning is
that
artificial machine what should things
or everything
that we can call it
our lives and so
do you think this um the japanese
perspective of kokoro
and the integration of intelligence and
emotion is also part of why
they've developed many more humanoid
robots
as well yeah in particular has developed
a number of people
yeah there is a similar meaning with
humanoid
researchers says the style of the robot
like human so then it's humanoid
but in my opinion it's very wide
meaning so humanoid
yeah of course a head to arms and two
legs or something
it's a kind of humanoid but
yeah so
not uh only the style but also the
functions is very important for the
humanoid
so we call that yeah there are very
there's no leg and no arms
but there is only a head and body
but its
activity resemble to human or some
intelligence or some so
facial expression something we can call
that such kind of robot humanoids
so it's because it's close to the human
or living things so
i for i try to focus on the
function the
leading functions arriving functions
of the robot so
it means that we believe we are living
right then
in the case of the robot what happens
when we consider that
living things so it means that
we uh regards artichoke
machines as a human then we can call
human right
a kind of human right
can you understand that yes
so you said in the 1970s there were just
these two professors working in
really japan and so i wonder
what the sort of broader context of
robotics in japan were
and why there were so few people then
and how it grew over the span of your
career
and also the relationship between the
kind of manufacturing robotics
and the research robotics and the
academics
probably at that time it is separating
the industrial field and academic field
also the in 1960s
so there are few wrote research all over
the world
the in japan also and then the
professor kato told me once that
he couldn't use the
title robot in his research
because it's a filled with a science
fiction
not academic research most of the
research regarded the robot is a kind of
science fiction monster is a
so then the professor shirokato uses a
word
artificial hand what is sharing
and application is a medical field
so hand prosthesis or something
but 1970s so the 8 with microcomputers
and
such kind of computing system is
developing
was developing and so we
could use such kind of
intelligent functions then
many researchers in the world starts
robotics so there's no problem to use a
wild robot
but 1960s it is
very difficult to use robot in the
research area
probably in the us and europe with the
same situations
and in 1970s
so in the yeah of course indus robot
had started in the u.s
the patent of the devil and
after that there are many industrial
robots developed
and in japan 1980s
many robots introduced to the factories
so but we
did not concern we did not have the
relation to the
industrial robot in the states
of course there is a kinematics dynamics
and theoretical field there are many
researches
in the academic field but industrial
robot
did not require such kind of
say advanced kinematics and dynamics
so better in the robot
could move and contribute to the
automation
the interesting is that in japan
industrial robot the number of windows
is
high rather than other
countries that is mean that's a
very tight relation
that i do
the research about the mine and cocoa
many japanese or most of japanese
accept to consider the mind
and cocoa in the robot to artificial
things
but in america
and europe it is very difficult to
introduce such kind of philosophy or
concept
because you know
that there is a kind of toy
uh if the figure is a
human or the animals and a
small child throw away or
some breaks such a toy
then in japan
parents said oh
she's crying she means a door
or animals but probably in
u.s europe you
told you uh you tell the children
don't do that it's broke
it's a so it's a
sympathy with such kind of
artificial things
we are easily synthesized with such
kind of doors what artificial things but
resemble to the animal the humans
probably it's from it's come from the
difference of the culture or religion
so about the industrial role it is same
situations
the in europe i heard from some
professors in europe
he said that
european people fast
the company tries to enter the
industrial robot
they defused because as a robot
replace a human
but in japan the labor in the factory
welcome to robot they are friends
so they called the such an industrial
robot
it's a it's a
idol in in japan the
very beautiful radioactive
so they are welcome
to introduce industrial robots
because that they
sympathize with such industrial robot
as a human friend that is a big
difference
based on that difference with the
culture
and concept that's a very interesting
point
the difference research in japan
and other countries
and i guess related to that so where
where does your research
funding come from is it mostly from the
government or do you also work with
industries
both of course
japan has a
governmental funding like nsf in u.s
we call next mumbo kakso
has a big fund for the research field
all the
research field and also about the
robotics
several companies are very interested in
developing the future robot
then some companies
has asked me to have
collaboration to develop the
new robot so i already mentioned about
the 21
robot system it's a human symbiotic
robot
it's a it was also a result of the
cooperation with companies all the funds
from the companies
also it's a company
did not ask me to develop the robot they
asked me to collaborate
to build a new robot so
there are many staffs involved
many staffs in the industry companies
joined my laboratory and
many students join those laboratory
projects in my laboratory so
there are about 10 to 20
researchers involved for
10 years
for seven years to level 21 system
so it is
it was confidential project
tender for seven years i couldn't
report anything in the conference
over the research papers so
three or four years i could
do i i could report the
research results so before
starting the training on system
development but
through four years the repo
the number of reports did you seek then
my friends in japan
asked me what i was
going on for what reasons you
you i did so
there were a few reports in the
conference
but uh i couldn't say anything i
couldn't say anything
about new project and but
yeah that project to study in 2000
and complete it to 207
and i press released
the 21 system so probably at that time
it's a
top uh
human symbolic group in the world i
believe
yeah so many people researchers
know the 21 system i survived the site
and
also visited many many researchers in my
laboratories
to see the czech training
system the interesting
that i press released
in december and
november and just after two days or
something
the people in the real garage in the u.s
tell from me they want
to visit my laboratory to see the 21st
season
at that time it's not
famous in the mirror garage
but after that you know it's a very big
company and
now it's spirit to other companies but
so the president and some technical
advisors visit my laboratory yeah i
accepted
their visiting so they
checked the 21 system like that like
that
so that we had many
useful discussions yeah i remember that
it's just after the announcement will
tell you a system
just two days after what were some of
the japanese companies that you worked
with
which japanese companies did
yeah many companies involved that
project but
there is a main company but it is
confidential now
it continues but you can
know that to see my report
because in japan we had
several presentations
in the conference and it
includes a company's name
but officially it is
confidence but
big companies and also the big company
in the
robot field actuator sensors will
involved many industries
involved that project yeah one company
supervise everything but many companies
probably you know all the company name
they involved the 21 project
great and um were you also working with
other
university researchers and roboticists
on this project or other projects
collaborators in masada university
the very uh good point is that
we can easily cooperate
so usually one
laboratory has one professor and he
or she manages everything and
there are many laboratories in the
universities and they are independent
so it's almost the same situation in the
u.s europe but
also in japan but the wasat university
it is
easy to collaborate the several
laboratories to develop
one robot to a tournament so for example
that
i already mentioned about two system
museum robot
piano playing robot it's a four
laboratories collaboration
so cutter laboratory developing the
hand and arm and leg and also the
intelligent motion generation system
and other laboratories develops a
vision system and specific recognition
species
system and also the computer system
so it is robotics
has very wide field
from the materials
to computer program
the mechanical engineering informatics
and electronics everything
it is kind of impossible
to cover all the area of the robotics
then generally each
laboratory has some topics
for example the sram about
what hardware was hand
so it's a special topics each level has
but if we we are trying to realize that
system of all the robots we have to
introduce many kinds of
advanced technologies materials
computers electrical circuit everything
so we should cooperate with
laboratories and companies
that have very special
technologies of know-how about that
electronics are computers every in the
field
so in uh university in our cell industry
it is very easy to cooperate
with many laboratories
so we communicate or always communicate
and gather information or
advice and also the students communicate
with each other
it's very good for the students to
run everything about the robotics
area so it's probably a very good point
in the vaseline i think we have great
advantage
who are some of the roboticists
professors that you've
collaborated with i'm in madison
takanishi and professor fujimoto
and i and also there are
very famous professors but in the field
of
vision and specific cognition synthesis
and there are professor hashimoto and
professor
kobayashi and
province who graduated my laboratory
now i became the
full professor then the
about seven or eight professors involved
a robotics laboratory we call the human
robotics institute
in washington university so each
professor
has a special topics but
sometimes we collaborate and build
one robot based on the
funds from the government so
about five years or ten years
we developed that kind of
say collaborate result
in the new robot now
you know the uh uh
three one one it's a fukushima
new popular accident so the japanese
government
are the big one to develop
how to convert recover
plant also the how to assist the
residents humans and the fukushima area
so we are now collaborating with some
companies
and also the correlate to several
laboratories
to build a new robot it's
directly not to relation to the
fukushima nuclear power plant but its
validation through the humans
live around the fukushima area or
something
to assist and also
say keep the safety and
it's a new field to develop the robot
in a massive university team
they have a safety robot safety
institute in
tokyo right is that what they do safety
institute
probably by japanese government
and aisd in scuba but it's a
little bit different safety has
many meanings so
one is uh some uh
checking system of that that this robot
is safe or not
it's a aisc other institution such a
robotic i don't know the exact name
but probably the doctor you poisoned
uh no dwell about that
in my case the safety means
safe human robot interactions
so the robot
works around the human the robot has the
safety functions
so the industrial robot the many kinds
of robot
there is some say
isolate by the fence or something
but the human symbiotic robot
has a safety function it means that the
soft function was some recognition
function
that you would touch and
have the physical interaction
the same robot means
that the robot can have the physical
interaction with human
that means a safe
safety so in the
nuclear problem to have a mobile robot
safety
different meanings what's the
biggest challenge for human robot
interaction
and really getting this sort of
emotional recognition into robots
what's the technical yeah technical yeah
important things how to recognize the
individuals
so in the welfare field who are
such a assistant in the human daily life
so the lord has to have the function
to recognize human individuals and
adapt to individuals so
we human
can assist as a person easily
because that we can understand
themselves we can understand them
what are the conditions or some
feelings then
for example in the hospital so
the nursing care requires
adaptation to each patient
so the uh they
understand that individual conditions
the same way the robot have to
understand
the differences individuals
so very difficult but it is very
important
to realize what
and introduce a practical field of the
humanitarian symbiotic robot
it's a challenge of our topics
that allows them to prioritize their
goals and
perceive the world according to the what
the people around them might need
that that means that the priority
yeah well i just um so once you
recognize somebody then you
you can adapt to their particular needs
but that would change
your goals as a robot right to adapt to
the needs of
who you're working with
yeah the important things are how to
important thing is to collaborate with
hospitals and welfare facilities and
all kinds of such a nursing care
system peoples and we have to correct
them
and what is a
of the technology that would
adapt to humor so
now it is very difficult
problems so now we are looking
for what is the important things to
proceed this project so that is the
first stage
of course the conversation
and human uh speech synthesis and
specific organizations that
are kind of two not the uh
real functions the real function
is that how to recognize the individuals
that is a new topics
there is no presentation no research
for example the iris conference
the proceedings probably it's very
difficult and
there is no such thing titles
in the proceedings
and the applications that you're looking
at are primarily
personal care healthcare yeah yeah yeah
it's very important because you know
that japan has
asian society so
now i am 55.
so next 20 years
the young people the population the
young
age using and
i'm very worried about the future japan
so it's very serious program
and now already
asian society brings a big problem
in the area it depends on area
tokyo area is there many people but
suburban other areas
some areas or only there are elderly
people
that's a big problem so
we should introduce and we should
develop
such human civil robot
as soon as possible to introduce
to such area to hospital that we have
field
but such kind of robots are on the
dimension that
they have to have the function to
recognize
and adapt to individuals
so it's a very important thing okay
so tell me about your year visiting at
stanford
who did you work with there and what
sort of projects
oh i did not
belong some project but
so i was in the
laboratory of professor vanni ross
he is a both of the
professor author katie and
i also talked to discuss
osama and
i'm very i was very interested in
discussion with vani vanilos
about such human robot collaboration or
what is the essence of the human what
the essence of robot so differences
and also the emotion and
intelligence yeah one
episode i had that
i once i explained vani about my project
of the robot mind so
i underst
i understand that there is a big
difference
between the english language people
and japanese people because
we explained so
many way is about the mind
but i explained that
mind is origin and the mind
supervises every all the behaviors of
the human
that the body told me there is a word
out of mind in english
out of mind means that there is
no mind mind
cannot supervise or monitor the human
behavior
but kokoro in japanese
i believe that kokoro
controls everything then
i understood that there is a difference
kokoro and mind so
such kind of conversation is very
interesting and very
safe good
for me to proceed my research
so i enjoyed the conversation
with barney and katie osama
in u.s and also other
students professors so also the
education system in u.s is
i'm very interested in that i
now about
seven years ago the master university
my department changed the curriculum so
i introduced the visual thinking
the course i
i know that in istanbul university the
mechanical engineering department
stammered invest introduced the force of
visual thinking
it's a very interesting course so the
students
make some uh attitude things by paper
only papers and also using the
level and the robot
contest very uh
interesting around also the students are
involved very exciting
so i introduced such kind of course
to my department so the
experience in stanford university is
very very good for me to
proceed my career and also research and
education
and have you also discussed this the
kokoro with
philosophers or psychologists
uh yeah sometimes
but it is very difficult to
discuss kokoro with
from a point of view psychology
because they don't know the
technology they don't know the computers
they don't know the robots so it is very
difficult to explain
that so
i read many books but
i avoid the conversation with
such researchers but because that
it is very difficult to say
proceed the for what
if we compensate have the conversation
with
a psychologist or something so
they they cannot dis
they cannot explain about
essence of the mind from the point of
view of
engineering or science it is very
difficult point
and some psychology says
we should not discuss such things
so also the yeah
it is all same situation in the overseas
other countries
in the i once i attended the
international conference
in europe and there is some discussion
about the
robot mind but
there is a round table discussion
something
so there are many audiences so the after
discussion
uh uh chairman uh
asked to the audience the floor
to have some questions so the
one audience raised a hand
and has had long
speech about that
we should not have research about
robot mind or something
so many say panelists
are bored to hear that
after that i found that the
question was from
the say he he belongs at church
so religion so it is very difficult to
talk about mind so it depends on the
position
you know the researchers yeah he also
researches but
join the church
and so the same situation about
psychologists
they have different fields different
positions
and it's very difficult so we should
discuss from the point of pure science
and engineering
first of course
we should consider essex
but before that
we should have some research and that
want to have a
result so then we discuss more
with science scientists
all the psychologists and also the
another people in the church and
religion
so now it is not a stage
at present to discuss with them
that's okay that's good and then we have
a question we always wind up with which
is
what's your advice to young people who
are interested in a career in robotics
so in my case i'm interested in robotics
in the junior high school
so the young people
interested in the science fiction is
very good
but about robotics
already mentioned that robotics covers
many kind of fields
so the big difference for example the
research of materials research on
computer program
but robotis needs everything
then the first stage the
young people who wanted to have the
research on robotics
first they should
learn about some topics
so in the department of mechanical
engineering
run the design materials and
control and if they
are in the computer science in the
computer program
architecture network and after that
learn more about wide field
so yeah some universities in japan has a
name of
robotics department or something i don't
like that
because it's a kind of there are
many fields but they come very
narrow not deep
but they learn everything but it isn't
good
not good for them first
there is a deep learn about
something and why don't that
field then
yeah we
we cannot uh we cannot become the
specialist of the materials and
computers and the
mechanism and english language we no
but i'm specialist of the mechanism
he's a specialist of the computer
science
and collaborate and
why don't our field their field
using just collaboration then
the young people can develop
the very good robots
so robot
robot is a special field
that covers many
functions and much wider field
so always i
talk to students
first you must learn about
such something in the deep
about some subject
subject then why do that
knowledge and experience
or they cannot develop
a good robot that i i believe that is
very important
great well thank you very much