THE VOICE IN THE MACHINE

This blog also appeared on Forbes website.

We are entering a new era of technological connectivity. We already have ‘smart products’ and ‘wearable devices’ and ‘the Internet of Things’.

Now there are robots, too.

Actually, this is not new either. Robots have been utilized in manufacturing for the last two decades, lumbering back and forth between assembly points, dropping off raw materials or delivering assembly parts and final products.

The difference now is that these new robots do not lumber. They skitter. They wink at you. They are deliberately designed, much like C3PO, to mimic our actions and register an emotional context. Whereas robots of the past worked for us, the latest versions (social robots) want to work with us. More significantly, they want us to befriend them.

This is a dramatic shift in thinking that may take some getting used to. Or not. In fact, the device that…