55
says the assumption of staff and researchers
alike was that people would want the robot to
do manual chores. But most residents didn’t
want to give Stevie a verbal order and be left be-
hind as it scooted down the hall. They wanted
the robot to stay and interact with them. They
wanted the robot to keep them company.
“When we went into conversations with
people, especially after they met the robot,
[and] asked them what are the things you liked
most about it, they’d say, ‘It made me laugh’ or
‘It made me smile,’ ” McGinn says. “We didn’t
expect to go there. We thought our trajec-
tory would be to put arms on this and have it
as, like, a servant robot.” The final version of
the machine will still be able to make deliver-
ies. But “having a tool that’s useful is differ-
ent from having something that’s enjoyable,”
McGinn says. The enjoyable things “are prob-
ably more important to get right in the short
term, because those are the things that seem
to affect people’s quality of life.”in a lounge with the same kind of sturdy rat-
tan furniture and warm-toned floral upholstery
that the Golden Girls had in their living room,
nine women and one man gather on a sunny
August afternoon for happy hour, a weekly so-
cial event that takes place on every floor of the
Independent Living wing. This week, the third
floor has extended an invitation to Stevie.
“Hi, Stevie!” several of the women call as
the robot rolls up from the elevator, an entou-
rage of Knollwood staff and Trinity researchers
trailing in its wake. “This is the third floor,” a
woman says loudly and slowly to the robot, as
if it were hard of hearing. “Third-floor social
hour.” After waving hello to the group, Don-
nelly takes a seat on a chair outside the circle.
Stevie can recognize and respond with canned
answers to about 100 common questions—
“How are you?” and “Where are you from?”—
but unscripted conversations require Donnelly
or a colleague to type furiously in response.
Donnelly has Stevie tell a joke (“What did
the left eye say to the right? Between you and
me, something smells”), which encourages
another resident to tell one about a group of
college kids. “Ha ha,” Stevie says in its robotic
monotone after hearing the punch line (“ Either
you like Picasso, or you don’t”). “That is a good
one. I might use it.” Stevie’s jokes are inten-
tionally cheesy, McGinn says. Humor is an ice-
breaker, and Stevie’s awkward delivery has an
endearing quality that tends to make people
feel more generous toward the machine.
Stevie is the star of happy hour. It sings
the Irish tune “Danny Boy.” It recounts an
Irish folktale. Everyone wants to tell Stevie a
story about their grandparents who came from
County Mayo, or of a long-ago visit to Ireland.
“The experience was wonderful,” a woman
named Mary Ellen says of kissing the Blar-
ney Stone, a popular tourist destination near
the city of Cork. “I would rather kiss a man,”
another woman calls out from a corner of the
room. “It’s been a long time.” A third woman
excuses herself and makes her way back down
the hall, an empty wineglass rolling around in
the basket of her walker.
One thing we are learning as robots join us
on this planet is that just as there are situations
in which it’s easier for people to bond with an
animal than with another person (hence the
value of pet therapy), there are also situations
in which some people feel more comfortable151K
Estimated shortfall of paid
care workers in the U.S.
in 2030355K
Estimated shortfall of paid
care workers in the U.S.
in 204029%
Projected annual growth in
demand for “social robots”
from 2019 to 2022Stevie speaks
with a somewhat
hard-to-place British
accent that users in
early tests found easier
to understand than the
Irish lilt of its creators