The short and strange life of the world's first friendly robot

Japanese Gakutensoku was a gigantic pneumatic automaton that crossed all of Asia and then mysteriously disappeared.


Makoto Nishimura (left) and his team designed the robot's head so that it could mimic human emotions

In 1923, a play was performed in Tokyo with the participation of “artificial people”. It was called Rossum's Universal Robots, abbreviated as RUR Two years earlier, the premiere of this play caused a sensation in Prague and became famous all over the world. The play itself was written by Karel Chapek. It tells about the creation of synthetic human slaves, or robots - from the Czech word "robota", which in translation means forced labor. At Čapek, robots, originally intended to serve their people-owners, gain consciousness, revolt and in the shortest possible time destroy the entire human population of the earth. In the final scene of the play, it turns out that robots are able to experience the same emotions as us. And viewers ask themselves: will robots learn to reproduce their own kind? And if you learn, then what is their radical difference from people?

This play left a lasting impression on Makoto Nishimura, a forty-year-old professor of marine biology from Hokkaido Imperial University. As Nishimura later said in an article, he was extremely excited by the idea that "there is a danger that a certain perverted world will appear in which people become appendages of artificial creatures." The existence of machines written off from man and intended for slave labor means that people themselves are slaves. Nisimuru was even more worried that the struggle between people and machines was a completely unnatural process.

Perhaps the fantastic play would not have impressed Nishimura so much if he had not witnessed how fiction becomes a reality. He was already familiar with the first European and Japanese automatons invented to demonstrate independent behavior. And while some cars showed noble or creative abilities, such as playing music, drawing, calligraphy or archery, others were assigned meaningless work. That was exactly what bothered Nishimura so much.

By the end of the 19th century, the first “steam people” already existed - walking humanoids driven by steam engines . Later models were equipped with electric or gasoline engines . These machines were used to pull strollers.or push the boat. Many similar machines were created in the USA. At the very beginning of the 20th century, the world saw mechanical nannies, “beauty queens” and policemen . In his work, Nishimura also mentions mechanical porters, navigators and guard robots. It is likely that he saw these machines in action while living in New York from 1916 to 1919, receiving his doctorate from Columbia University.


Good giant: Makoto Nishimura (to the left of Gakutensoku) and his assistant, Boji Nagao, pose with a robot more than 3 meters high (including the pedestal)

From our point of view, these machines are more curious than useful. But for Nishimura, they looked as convincing as modern AI and modern robots - for us. As a scientist, he was faced with attempts to grow artificial cells in laboratories. And this only strengthened his belief that once artificial Earth would flood the Earth. The whole question was which ones. And what kind of relationships can they build with biological people.

According to Nishimura, the nature of an artificial person or any other machine of the same kind is determined by the intentions of the creators. And in the development of steam drivers, one could see only one intention: to create mechanical slaves. And this, according to Nishimura, could lead to the emergence of a whole pejorative class of cars (in the style of RUR) and their revolt.

Frightened by the scenario in which "humanity will be destroyed by the crown of his creation," Nishimura decided to intervene and turn the tide of history. His idea was to create a completely new type of artificial person who would glorify nature and promote the best humanistic ideas. This robot was to become a friend of man, and not his slave. Even more - an inspiring example. In 1926, he quit his professorship, moved to Osaka, and began to build his ideal artificial man.

Nishimura’s creation was in fact the answer to another machine: Televox , which debuted in 1927. Televox was an awkward creature whose job it was to connect the calling people. In other words, he personified everything that Nishimura was so afraid of. The creation of a slave-like anthropomorphic robot, as he understood it, not only disputed, but violated the laws of nature. It was disgusting.


Minds and Cars: Makoto Nishimura (right) and his team are working on a mechanism in Gakutensoku’s head. The mechanism allowed the robot to move its eyes, mouth and neck.

However, here's what is interesting: Nishimura was not an engineer. And had no idea about mechanical or electrical systems. He was a marine biologist with a doctorate in botany. When he first watched Chapek’s play, he was just finishing an article on the cytology of marimo — moss balls living in the waters of Lake Akan in northeast Hokkaido.


Marimo algae. Now she can be brought as a pet.

Nevertheless, it was the experience of the biologist that motivated Nishimura. Being an ardent supporter of the theory of evolution, he was nevertheless skeptical of the lemma “the fittest individual survives” and despised the rhetoric of social Darwinism, which opposed people to each other. He considered mutual assistance as the main engine of evolutionary changes. In his view, cooperation is the key to global development. The success of one individual (or a whole species) can give an advantage to everyone else.

“Now all human aspirations come down to“ conquering nature ”,” he writes in his book “The Womb of the Earth” (Daichi no harawata). The book was published in 1931 and described in detail his view of the philosophy of nature. "Instead of reverence for nature, our victories only fuel the struggle between people." Turning to society, he called: "We cannot ignore the fact that people came to civilization only through joint labor."


Exposition of the robot in Japan


The Nishimura team built a special pedestal for the robot

His own vision of evolution and the natural hierarchy had a huge effect on Nishimura’s views on artificial people. This significantly alienated him from European writers such as Samuel Butler, Herbert Wells and Karel Capek. They just did believe that “the fittest model survives” and the triumph of the robot is the end of humanity. Nishimura insisted that people from “flesh and blood” would only benefit from the evolution of robots - but on the condition that they would create something inspiring, rather than simple slaves.

The artificial man of Nishimura was really different from all the others. Imagine a giant figure sitting on a gilded pedestal. Her eyes are closed, as if in deep thought. In his left hand, the figure holds a crystal-shaped light bulb. A hand with a light bulb slowly rises up. At the very moment when the light comes on, the figure opens his eyes, as if enlightenment had overtaken her. Struck by his own find, the figure smiles. Then she looks at the white sheet of paper in front of her and begins to write down ideas that have just come to her.

Nishimura refused to call his creation a robot. Instead, he coined the name Gakutensoku, which in translation can mean "one who learns from the laws of nature." He considered his creation to be the first representative of a new species whose purpose was to inspire people, expanding their intellectual horizon. He wrote down the word "Gakutensoku" using katakana. Future Gakutensoku were seen by Nishimura as large and constantly becoming more complex.

But how did Gakutensoku actually function? Historians and robotics around the world do not know the answer to this question. The fact is that just a couple of years after the construction was completed, the robot disappeared under very mysterious circumstances (we will come back to this). Only a few photos of the design remain. Something about the design of the machine can be gleaned from an article that Nishimura published in 1931. But, like any real writer, he often sacrificed technical details for the sake of an exciting narrative and artistic expression.

The main mechanism of Gakutensoku was driven by a compressor, which, apparently, was powered by electricity. The air flow was controlled by a rotating drum with special protrusions. When the mechanism turned on, the pegs protruded and closed many rubber tubes that set in motion parts of Gakutensoku's body. As in classic automatic machines, with the help of these pegs it was possible to "program" a sequence of movements.

Nishimura tried to instill in his car as much “naturalism” as possible. In search of a way to overcome the "mechanical appearance" of the robot and avoid a lot of unnecessary sounds and knocks, he avoided the use of metal in construction to the maximum. The only metal part of the robot was its skeleton. To depict the creature’s skin, Nishimura used soft and plastic rubber, which allowed “to make movements much more natural, smooth and laid back." In addition, “unlike American robots” using steam, Gakutensoku was driven by compressed air, which seemed more natural to Nishimura. He said that the idea of ​​using compressed air came to him while playing the shakuhachi (a traditional Japanese bamboo flute), when he experimented with air currents of different strengths.By changing the pressure and using different types of rubber with different indicators of elasticity, Nishimura was able to achieve complex combined movements. He described them as follows: “Imagine a large wave, inside which there is another, smaller one. And in it - one more, and so on. ”

For Nishimura, the most important quality of Gakutensoku was the ability to demonstrate human gestures and facial expressions. Again, this is the result of a careful adjustment of the air flow inside the rubber tubes. A continuous stream of air lifted the outer corners of the eyes and made the face smile. With the help of a small pressure inside the neck, it was possible to create a slight shake of the head. Satisfied with the fruit of his work, Nishimura wrote that "unlike American artificial people, only ours can express emotions."


Televox, a telephone operator robot developed by Westinghouse Electric Company

But as soon as the air ceased to flow into Gakutensoku’s head filled with tubes, he immediately “lost face” and became repulsive, frightening. Nishimura and his colleagues had to invent an additional device that would allow to bleed air gradually. They described it like this: “several convex, wart-like, parts aligned on one rotating axis .... Only when this modification was put into action did Gakutensoku finally stop looking so crazy. ”

Nishimura emphasized the similarities between the structure of his artificial person and the anatomy of a real human body. He said that the air circulating through the Gakutensoku tubes was like human blood. People receive energy by consuming food and distribute it throughout the body through the circulatory system. For artificial people, this process is organized in a similar way: they receive electrical energy, and then with the help of compressed air circulating through the tubes, they distribute it throughout the body.

Gakutensoku's debut took place in September 1928 at an exhibition in Kyoto dedicated to the recent coronation of Emperor Shoe. Recalling this exhibition several years later, in the book "The Womb of the Earth" Nishimura says that Gakutensoku caused awe in people. Despite more than 3 meters in height, he seemed to the audience "much more human than some people." A year later, Gakutensoku went on tour and “visited” Tokyo, Osaka and Hiroshima. He was shown in Korea and China and "worked" as an artificial person from 6 am to 8 pm, welcoming more and more new spectators. Newspapers in Japan, China and Korea were full of photographs of the "friendly giant", so that even those who could not see the robot in person could imagine it. And then Gakutensoku disappeared.

Nishimura himself never told what exactly happened. In an interview published in 1991, the son of a scientist, Kyo Nishimura, said that the automaton disappeared on its way to Germany in the early 1930s. But Kyo was then very young and does not remember the details. I [the author of the article] were not able to find any evidence that Gakutensoku generally went to Germany. Even if this is true, we still will never know how he disappeared, nor who could steal him.

Despite his mystical disappearance, Gakutensoku left an indelible mark on Japanese pop culture and robotics. During World War II, Japanese animators created propaganda cartoons in which robots were portrayed as heroes. They used their superpowers to help people. In the 1950s, Astro Boy Osamu Tezuki portrayed robots as the emotional saviors of mankind, driven by deep empathy for all other living things. There is no evidence that Tezuki had ever seen Gakutensoku, but he grew up in the same area of ​​Osaka where he lived and worked as a school teacher in Nishimura during the war.

Gakutensoku appears in the 1988 science fiction film Teito Monogatari and saves people from demonic invasion. Nishimuru, who died at the age of 72 in 1956, is played by his son Kyo, who became a famous Japanese actor. The film, in turn, inspired the creation of several books and TV shows on Japanese robotics. And in 1955, one of the asteroids discovered by Japanese astronomers was named 9786 Gakutensoku.

That's how Gakutensoku influenced all the robots in Japan. Among other things, many robotics continue to be guided by the fact that machines are not the antipode of human nature, but its continuation. The robots that were built in Japan since the 1970s have a number of features originally identified by Nishimura: quiet and smooth movements, the use of compressed air, and an emphasis on the naturalistic skin and face of the robot. But the most important thing is attention to how people react to the emotions and human manifestations of the robot.

Since the 90s, cognitive robotics has been developing in Japan. Her task is to determine how people think and behave in order to create the most attractive robots. The Japanese want to build not stupid performers, but friendly mechanisms that can inspire and fill a person with positive emotions. It would be a stretch to consider that Nishimura single-handedly formed the whole country's view of robotics. But the fact is that modern Japanese are practically not afraid of the scenario predicted in RUR (suppression and extermination of people by robots). Thanks to Nishimura’s views on the relationship between cars and people, the principle of “robots are our friends” is now dominant in Japan.

PS In the source you can also read a short note about trying to rebuild Gakutensoku. If you read laziness, watch the video below. The reconstruction process began in April 2007 and took a little over a year.