Engineering Robots with Heart in Japan

Abstract

Abstract Japanese narratives of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots have long been characterized as the cultural antithesis to their anglophone counterparts. According to this model, whereas in the West intelligent machines signify a threat to humanity, in Japan machines are partners to humans. Such shorthand cultural distinctions circulating in anglophone imaginaries can feed back into robotics design practices in Japan. This phenomenon is especially prevalent within emotion-based AI research, where Japanese roboticists cite animacy as a distinctively ‘Japanese’ component of robotics design that fosters human–robot intimacy. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Japan, this chapter analyses imaginaries of animacy among Japanese roboticists and animacy’s role in generating intimacy between humans and companion robots. It argues that, while an emphasis on emotionality in Japanese AI narratives challenges distinctions between reason and emotion in anglophone AI research, the complex cultural politics of these distinctions also challenges simplified notions of ‘culture’ in AI research more broadly.