Cute Robot Explores Random Acts of Kindness

[A Serious Buddhist]

"Robot/People artist" Kacie Kinzer created a small robot whose only ability was to roll along slowly in a straight line. The "tweenbot" (goes between one place and another) was then equipped with a cute face and placed at one corner of Washington Square Park in New York, with a sign asking strangers to point it in the right direction so that it could travel to the opposite corner.

Within three quarters of an hour 29 random strangers had helped it to its destination. Kinzer (who shadowed the little bot with a hitten camera in her purse) writes, "The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object." Click here to read about and see its adventures.

Questions: would people have reacted differently if the robot hadn't been cute? Or in another neighbourhood (people walking through a park are presumably in a different state of mind than people rushing to work on Wall Street)? What about a another city, a smaller town, village, a rural neighbourhood?

One of the reasons I love a good city (and New York is definitely a great city, as is Toronto where I live) is that stranger interactions are commonplace and generally polite and pleasant. This kind of "helping" is really important in an environment where you are constantly sharing space and resources with people whom you don't know and who seemingly have nothing to offer you. This is pretty unusual in the world of animals and, if you think about it, in the world of humans who "traditionally" or "naturally" live in small related tribal groups and villages. (But I'm no anthropologist so I may be wrong about this.)

[Rob MacLachlan]

I thought this was a serious Buddhist website. Thanks for the social science lecture, the study of the obvious.

[Margaret]

Interesting, Franca. And one of the most interesting things (to me) is that Kinzer states as fact 'that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object'--how does she know that? Did she interview each of the persons who 'helped' the Tweenbot out? Or is she just projecting her own feelings about her creations (which I don't find very anthropomorphic) onto others? Nonetheless, people did interrupt their journeys, for whatever reason (and neither Kinzer nor we can state with any certainty what that might have been) to turn it in the right direction. I noticed on the video on Kinzer's website that at least one person did so by nudging the Tweenbot with his foot, which might not be totally 'empathetic' although it was effective.

Maybe some people saw it as a game. But to assume it's representative of how humans interact with humans (if that's what Kinzer is doing) is I think pushing things a bit far. As I recall from my last visit to New York (quite a few years ago), Washington Square is in the middle of a university area, so maybe the interaction had to do with students being curious. It's also a centre for drug-dealing, and the park is the sleeping area of many homeless New Yorkers; so maybe the interaction had to do with a more-or-less resident population who had nothing else to do?

How would people have reacted if the robot were bigger than them? And not cute? How would they have reacted to a severely incapacitated person in an electric wheelchair? I think Kinzer needs to run a comparison study that uses real people in unattractive guises (drunk, delusional, physically incapacitated, etc.).

Yes, cities do give us an opportunity to demonstrate compassion, generosity, kindness etc. towards strangers (note: Buddhist content). But in the last city I lived in (Bristol, UK), there was more emphasis on avoiding drunks and pickpockets and muggers than on being helpful to one another. Maybe that's one of the great challenges of city living, and one of the 'edges' where practice can be developed if you live in a highly-urbanised environment. Tweenbots are cute, and you can be pretty sure they're not going to remember whether you were helpful or not, and if necessary you can just stomp on them. People are so much more complicated.

[A Serious Buddhist]

Thanks Margaret, you've raised some good questions, as well as an issue I hadn't considered before: play. People who are not otherwise emotionally engaged (fleeing from tigers, wreaking revenge on mortal enemies, etc.) really like to play. Perhaps the tweenbots didn't so much evoke a sense of kindness, but a sense of play.

What does Buddhism have to say about play? I think it's related it to the immeasurable, Joy. People are presented with the opportunity to affect the outcome of the experiment, and those who did seemed to take pleasure in that action. So from a Buddhist perspective, this experiment relates more to joy than to kindness.

[Janet]

Often it is the unexpected that jolts us out of habitual states of mind. At the very beginning of the video, in addition to the many people, I noticed there even was one dog that looked surprised and curious at the passage of the robot. Many of the people made a little startled jolt as they first noticed the robot. That moment of “What???” is part of what is so invigorating about great cities and also so invigorating about wilderness: so many moments that are impossible to anticipate.

The feeling I had from watching the video (perhaps inspired by the music that accompanied it) was indeed very playful. I agree with Margaret that we can’t know the motives that led so many people to intervene with the robot. Some might be curious only, some may have felt empathy for this human-like critter, and others may have had complex set of reactions, feelings, and thoughts. So many different people, and different motives, right?

Still, I was struck by how carefully and apparently even gently the small robot was handled by many people. The woman in the ranger hat, for example, touched the robot as if it were a little child. The woman in the black tights seemed to also, and when the robot didn’t immediately go in a “safe” direction, she stayed engaged until the robot seemed embarked on a good course. I felt patience and tenderness in that interaction. And joy, also, when the robot went on its way. Maybe projection, but maybe something more.

The man who took action to steer the robot from possible “harm,” turning the robot back in the direction from which it had come, saying, “You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road,” was intriguing. He may have been acting from compassion, treating this robot as a sentient being. Another bodhisattva in the city?

[Rob MacLachlan]

Why not just raise a dog and avoid the hundred-fold speculation and sociological analysis ;-)

[Janet]

Hmmm. . .

Nothing against dogs. Experiences with mine are complex and curious. But so can the experience of watching a video carefully be complex, fun and sweet. Just another potentially rich experience.

I'm trying to understand the edge that I am feeling here. Rob, did it feel like I or someone else was giving a preachy sociological analysis? I didn't read that from anyone else. If I came off that way, that wasn't my intent but just clumsiness. I was trying -- apparently ineptly -- to reflect on my experience as I watched the video. I was not trying to generalize nor to dictate that others see it the same way.

Rob, did you find something grating about this particular video? Or is there something fishy you are finding in the effort to connect what we see in the video to the Immeasurables? Or are you just joshing around? Can you say a bit more?

[Rob MacLachlan]

Oh my Janet, just two sentences and now I'm in trouble;-)

Didn't the Buddha remark about the capacity of mind to create dualistic fixation, and thus suffering? And didn't the most supreme of Western philosophers, from Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre to Simone De Beavoir skillfully answer this sense of dualistic void, this feeling of "being without"?......Ergo, the fundamental task of life is to "create meaning" in an intrinsically godless and ungoverned universe.?

And thus we have "art for art's sake", bad music, academic "publish or perish", medical journals clogged with "facts" with a half-life of five years, and so on, all in an effort to fruitlessly create substance and meaning from an inessential reality. Who was right?

I would add histrionic sociology to that list. Joyful entertainment is one thing, pompous pseudo-interpretive social science is another. I don't need an experiment with an unconscious robot to confirm my (or your) human nature.

I just love my dog and so do my kids. No effort required.

[Margaret]

Look at it as a study in reactivity. The robot creates a situation in which reactivity arises. Reactivity by the people who interact with the robot. Reactivity by the people who read about the robot. Look at the reactions. It's a process.

[Loren Enders]

Transform it, transform it, transform it. I know I will ALWAYS MAKE time to help a [replace robot w/female] in the park. Thanks for the reminder about equanimity :)