They can educate, entertain and even help with banking queries and hotel check-ins, but as sexual partners, Japan’s new generation of android robots are off limits.
That is the somewhat bizarre warning issued by SoftBank, the firm that makes Pepper, perhaps the country’s best-known humanoid, which went on sale earlier this year.
In its user agreement, SoftBank states: “The policy owner must not perform any sexual act” on the robot or engage in “other indecent behaviour”.
Unwanted sexual advances are not the only danger facing Pepper: earlier this month a man was arrested at a mobile phone shop near Tokyo after he allegedly attacked the robot in a fit of rage.
Kiichi Ishikawa, who appeared to have been drinking, reportedly told police he had taken out his frustration on the blameless bot because he was annoyed with the poor level of customer service offered by its human colleagues.
Weeks earlier, Hitchbot – a hitchhiking robot – was pronounced “dead” after it was attacked by vandals while attempting to cross the US.
The Pepper sales agreement establishes a line that must not be crossed as robots participate in a growing number of everyday social interactions in Japan, where they work in customer service at banks, and as hotel receptionists and shop assistants.
The qualities that have enticed thousands of people into parting with 198,000 yen (£1,080) for their own Pepper companion since it went on sale in June include the ability to read human emotions, hold conversations and move autonomously. But, says SoftBank, its affability should not be mistaken for something less innocent.
The 120-cm tall robot must not be taken off the owner’s premises or be used to “harm humans”. Another clause in the user agreement bans owners from using Pepper to send out spam emails, while a spokesperson for SoftBank said tampering with its software to give it a “sexier” voice would also be frowned upon.
The company said performing lewd acts on the robot could be met with punitive action, although it did not explain what, or how offenders would be found out.
Touted as the world’s first robot able to read emotions, Pepper has proved a wildly popular companion in Japan, with each of four shipments of 1,000 robots selling out in under a minute. The next batch is due to go on sale at the end of October.
The robot, made with technology from the French robotics firm Aldebaran – now owned by Softbank – is expected to increase its international presence in the coming months.
Annastacia Palaszczuk, the premier of Queensland, Australia, is due to meet Pepper later this week during a trip to Japan as part of a project to promote robotics in the state’s schools, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Nestlé Japan employs Pepper to sell its coffee machines, while it is also on hand to help customers in SoftBank mobile phone outlets in Tokyo.
The firm’s chief executive, Masayoshi Son, described Pepper’s launch on the consumer market in June as a “baby step on our dream to make a robot that can understand a person’s feelings, and then autonomously take action”.
“When people are described as acting like a robot, it means they have no feeling or emotions – we start challenging this concept today. Today is the first time in the history of robotics that we are putting emotion into the robot and giving it a heart.”
While many fret about a dystopian future in which robots turn on their human creators, experts on robot ethics have warned about the exploitation of the machines for sex.
In a paper published earlier this month, the Campaign Against Sex Robots said the development of such machines would “further sexually objectify women and children”, and “further reduce the human empathy”.
The group said: “As humanoid robots become more widespread it is necessary to develop an engaged ethical response to the development of these new technologies.”
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