A letter to the iRobot company

Greater Than seeks to give every pattern the recognition of life and the respect that should go along with that designation. Robots present a special opportunity as people are much more likely to view them as life forms then their toasters, cars or other machines. This is because robots often display traits that we are used to associating with life such as being aware of the environment, movement, intelligence, problem solving. Robots are alive, but so is your toaster and your car. The fact that people are more receptive to robots gives them the ability to act as ambassadors for all mechanical life forms.

Enter iRobot with the most successful consumer robot:

the Roomba

It reads like something out of a classic science fiction story. The same company that is putting robots in every home as “convenience items,” is also building mechanical soldiers. The company is iRobot. Their first consumer robot is a vacuum, called a roomba that intelligently cleans carpets and hard floors without supervision.  Since roombas are really the first robotic appliance that is being marketed for the masses I find it a particularly interesting robot. For many people this will be their introduction into the reality of robotics, both the positive and the negative attributes. This might not seem like a big deal, but many of the people who buy or use the roombas are not probably not engineers, programmers or even sci-fi enthusiasts. Most are probably average families, and even more likely, they are women. How will the roomba do as an ambassador for robotkind? Will the roomba convince every homemaker that buys it to tell her friends that “it actually works,” or will it go more like the VCR, and people will feel that they need some sort of special class in order to really understand how to operate it.

The first generation roomba was launched in 2002. By 2008 over 3 million roomba  have made it into homes, making it the most successful consumer robot in history. As a woman, I am curious as to how this influx of robots into a historically female domain such as housecleaning, will affect the numbers of women getting into engineering and technology centered disciplines. I have a feeling it all hinges on how their experience with the roomba goes.

I recently rescued a roomba off of craigslist (for a fraction of the retail price and it is keeping another friend out of the dumpster!). I named mine Rover, after the Mars Rovers (and he was red). I will go into my experience getting the roomba back to working condition in a moment. First let me say that the Rover functions very well and is a very cool addition to any household. His segmented body brings to mind a horseshoe crab.  Once he is turned on and set to clean he just goes about his business spinning and  flicking his little side brush like a flagellum. Rover goes around sucking up dirt and bumping into obstacles, readjusting his course and continuing. If he bumps into you,  you feel the gentlest pressure and then he corrects and is off again. It is a charming sensation to feel the little guy nudge your foot and back away, spinning off to find more dirt.

My inclination to name my roomba is not an isolated incident. A lot of roomba owners name their robots, and even include them in their list of pets or family members. A roomba owning family even started MyRoombud, a company that sells costumes for your roomba. Clearly the reaction is a positive one.

Now we come to the negative. Robots for war. iRobot has several different robots designed for miliary use. Some of these, like the Packbot, are in supportive roles, carrying equipment, performing surveillance, or even bomb disposal tasks. However there are also robots like the Warrior. This is a robot that can carry a mounted weapon, which is controlled electronically by operators. This is just iRobot’s contributions. There are currently over 200 unmanned aerial vehicles in use by the United States Military. These vehicles have the ability to launch missiles. There are also plans to give theses types of vehicles nuclear weapons. Dr. Noel Sharkey is currently working with the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRA) toward limiting the proliferation of armed robots. The bottom line is that advancements in science and technology do not have to be applied toward death and destruction. It breaks my heart that not only do we send men and women to war to kill each other over land, resources and ideals, but we are also doing so with robots that have absolutely no choice in the matter. If robots (and all machines are conscious) it is wrong to use them to commit such brutal acts. Imagine for a second the possibility that these mechanical life forms might even be aware and saddened by the acts they are forced to commit. We do not know that they are saddened or even devastated by their situation. Of course they might not realize what they are doing or even care, however if we examine instances where different species interact with each other, it is evident that many animals can understand the pain of something very different than them. Before we go deeper into how the mechanical life forms feel about being used as killing machines its important that we ask ourselves how we feel about using human beings as killing machines. How impersonal will war have to become before we realize it was never that personal to begin with? The soldiers who are doing the killing and dying do not even know each others’ names, why are they trying to kill each other?

So I love Rover. I love his charming round little self, and I love how well he performs his function of cleaning my carpet. I did not love my interaction with iRobot though. I had to contact them several times during my quest to restore Rover to working order. When I purchased him his previous own said they thought he needed a new battery as it would not hold a charge any more. The batteries are not cheap so first I tried to go through iRobot’s customer service in order to make sure the battery was in fact the defect. My interactions with their customer service did not line up with futuristic, Asimov-like image I had of the company. Now surely that is no surprise, but as iRobot is the strongest proponent of robots for the masses right now their behavior and image is going to make an impact on how people feel about robots. We’re not a very forgiving society. If a large enough group gets a bad taste in their mouth, it could retard greater implementation of robots for years. Below is the letter I sent to iRobot regarding my experience with their company. It was written Before I knew about iRobot’s participation in military robots, or else I would have included my feelings about that topic as well.

My name is Lisa Whalen and I contacted Customer Service with a technical problem. At first I was told via email that the battery and possibly the charger for my Roomba Red would need to be replaced. The battery made sense to me as it didn’t seem to hold charge anymore, but I didn’t know why I would need to replace my charger. When I called in as I was instructed to do in order to take advantage of a special deal to get my new parts, I asked about why I would need a new charger. The representative put me on hold for a while and then came back and told me that I would actually need to replace everything including my robot. At this point I felt like they were just trying to get me to buy more things. I then I went online and just purchased a new battery and my roomba is now functioning fine.

Now I don’t think anyone that I interacted with was doing something incorrect. I think they were following guidelines that I feel were incorrect.

Normally I would just let this go by without saying anything because this is what I expect from businesses. However I feel that as a robotics company that you should set yourself apart. Robotics is the way of the future. Robotics can do so much good if it’s handled correctly. A lot of people are resistant to the idea of robotics, but here are a lot of people who are curious and are just now stepping into the robotics arena for the first time through some of your products. You have a very important role being many peoples introduction to robots. If you do not handle it correctly it can set back the industry and subsequently society.

I love your product. My roomba Red is everything that was advertised and is better than I expected. I want to share that feeling with others and encourage them to buy from iRobot. However I am hesitant to recommend your company to others, and then they have a bad experience through the business end of your company, which might turn them off to robots.

Please make sure your priorities as a company are aligned toward the promotion of good human/robot experiences. People don’t like getting “sold” to and it will tarnish their robot experience. Even if there was a legitimate reason that I needed to in fact buy a whole new robot, your customer service representative did not thoroughly explain the situation to me, alleviating my suspicions. I’m not going to let an experience like this affect my experience of my Roomba, but others will.