Heather Knight and Marek Michalowski want us to tell positive stories about robots. Less Terminators and Decepticons, more Wall-E and Rosie the Robot. At the third annual Robot Film Festival in San Francisco this week, the pair will play host to portraits of friendly, funny, and caring robots.
“I think the kind of storytelling we have influences what we create,” Heather said while we were chatting in the Potrero Hill complex where the festival, an event she founded two years ago on the East Coast, will be held on July 20th and 21st.
Marek, the festival’s executive producer, agreed. “What we’d like to do is bring the popular imagination regarding robots a little bit closer to the middle—if we design and use technology irresponsibly, bad things can happen. But at the same time, we have an opportunity to create things that can be helpful, that we can have positive relationships with, and even emotional relationships.”
Image via Heather Knight
In their own personal relationships with robots, both Heather and Marek have embodied these principles. Heather and her robot pal Data, who has his own Twitter account, have explored socialization through the world of standup comedy. Marek’s most famous robotic progeny may be the Keepon, a Peep-lookalike who dances to music but, more importantly, helps socialize children with developmental disorders.
When asked what sorts of hopes she has for robots in the future, Heather depicted a harmonious world of robot and human cohabitation. “I hope that they can have fun, that they can explore. I would love robots to be able to have curiosity, creativity—all of these very human attributes that are not about what we do necessarily in our job description, but what we do around the water cooler.”
Beyond positive thinking, this year’s festival also explores the notion of form versus function. “We are enormously influenced by the forms that robots take,” Heather said. It’s true: when I met a spiderbot at last year’s Maker World Faire in Queens, I couldn’t stare at it for too long. It seemed creepy and just a little bit sinister.
And that’s the point: we humans ascribe intention, emotion, personality to robots the same way we do to each other and that’s something we need to pay attention to. “The point for me is not to make robots exactly like people,” she continued. “It’s that since we automatically make all these attributions, if we want robots to be able to operate in human society, they need to have some of those design principles.”
If you want to participate in these important and, yes, definitely a bit geeky conversations, the Robot Film Festival will take place this coming Saturday in San Francisco with a “Make-Your-Own Robot Film” workshop on Sunday. The Kickstarter for the event is running until Tuesday, so you can support Heather and Marek’s vision even if you can’t make the actual event.