With no face, no eyes and no legs, the gita robot doesn’t share the humanoid features of many robots on the market.
It can’t perform dance routines or answer questions. You’ll never catch it speaking, recording or manipulating objects. What it can do is follow its owner and carry up to 40 pounds of stuff. And that’s exactly how its makers want it.
Piaggio Fast Forward (PFF), the robotics arm of Vespa manufacturer The Piaggio Group, today announced the Nov. 18 drop of gita, the wheeled, rotund machine the company hopes will further Vespa’s brand vision.
Part of that vision, according to PFF CEO Greg Lynn and chief visionary officer Jeffrey Schapp, is to get customers out of their cars and off their phones.
They anticipate that gita, at $3,250 per robot, will encourage walking trips by eliminating the pain of hauling groceries, backpacks and other loads.
While gita is connected to a mobile app, interactions with the robot aren’t mediated by a screen. Users push a button to pair the device with their own bodies, and the little machine follows them everywhere — except up stairs. Notably, the robot can't capture images or record location data.
I got on a call with Lynn and Schnapp to talk about gita, family errands and the implications of this not-at-all-autonomous robot.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Built In: Why do you think gita can make humans more connected to each other?
Greg Lynn: While we did testing with people within and outside the company, we found out it wasn't like, “Me and my robot.” It was much more, “Hey, let's go on a picnic,” or, “Hey, let's make a run to the grocery store together.” It was like 1.8 people on average per trip, so it was more than one person running these errands.
My kids are now grown, but I remember talking to all the parents, saying, “Oh yeah, our quality time is driving the kids to school for 10 minutes while they sit in the back seat strapped in and they have to talk to me. And having a gita means you could actually go with somebody, whether friends or family, and actually take a walk and talk to each other.
Jeffrey Schnapp: It’s not a companion robot. It's not trying to imitate the behaviors of a human interlocutor. It's really a vehicle that's there as a support for life mobility choices that get you out into the world, face to face, with your hands free, not staring at a little screen.
BI: What would happen if these become popular and sidewalks fill up with gita robots?
GL: We think that where we're going to have the biggest impact is not in people's commutes, but at the end of the day in people's neighborhoods. We feel like if all those errands and trips were replaced by a percentage of gitas, we're still not going to be an obstacle on the sidewalk.
BI: What do you expect the reception to be among retailers and restaurant-owners?
GL: Well, that's a complicated question. In general, I would say the brick-and-mortar people think these could be the kinds of tools that revitalize brick-and-mortar, in-person shopping, versus online shopping and delivery. But, you know, there are concerns because it's a totally new product.
BI: There’s a joke that every news story about robotics features a photo from The Terminator or an allusion to robots taking over the world. Do you see the larger robotics community ever making a paradigm shift away from humanoid robots?
JS: I think that robots are generally very poor at doing things that are fundamental to human interaction. They're brilliant at performing the kinds of tasks that have transformed manufacturing processes over the last 20 years. But companion robots generally fail at the tasks that they're designed to do. And the approach we've adopted is really to expand and enhance human capabilities through the development of a robotic vehicle.
BI: For a lot of families, gita may be prohibitively expensive. How does it add value?
GL: We think for sandwich parents — people who are taking care of one or both parents and also children — roommates, couples, families, anyone who’s looking at purchasing a second or third car, gita can start to make a lot of sense. And that's for a really big percentage of the population. So for a family who can, just for fun, spend $3,000 on a device, there's not a whole lot of those people, but we feel like when a lot of people start to see these around their neighborhoods and understand how they can actually use them, it might start to make a lot of sense financially.
JS: In the case of small apartment buildings and so forth, we can see groups of neighbors deciding that they might share a gita. And, of course, for the segment of the population that struggles with mobility issues, it represents a particular benefit, whether that's the aging population or people who just can't carry heavy loads.
BI: I’m curious how dogs and small children react to gita.
GL: A lot of mornings, I pair the gita to my dog, and he could totally care less — even that he's being followed by one. So they don't care. Kids, on the other hand, tend to love them.
