Many of us already live with some kind of domestic digital companion, even if it is in the acceptable form of a smart speaker like an Amazon Echo or Google Nest Hub. But what if these inanimate objects were imbued with a little more character? Would interactions become less fraught, frustrating and functional (‘Google, what’s the weather like in London today’)? Might we all just slow down a little, snagged by the lure of a ghost in the machine?
OKA was founded by Wesley Chen and Hua Wang, a self-described ‘nomadic entrepreneur’ with a very specific reason for his approach to robotics. ‘I spent ten years designing mechanisms to make people come back to their phones,’ Wang says candidly, explaining how his new robotics venture OKA (One Kind Artifact) set out to be something different. ‘I watched Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis and it made me question why robots are still not a part of our lives, nearly 100 years later,’ he says over video from New York.
For Wang, the answer boiled down to two things; the expectations that a robot should be able to do everything a human could do, and the corresponding need for them to be human-scaled, large and mechanical. ‘I couldn’t imagine having such intrusive machinery in my house,’ he admits.
The answer is Mori, a ‘robot that belongs in a home’. At 30cm tall, roughly the same size as a desk lamp, Mori (Japanese for ‘forest’) is explicitly not an appliance, nor a Terminator-style humanoid that needs a whole afternoon to fold your laundry.
The most obvious visual metaphor is a mushroom, with an illuminated hat/cap above a bulbous fabric-covered stem. In between the two sits Mori’s ‘face’, two illuminated eyes and a button (camera) nose. Servos activate a discrete range of fluid movements, eyes dart left and right, eyelids flutter and the little robot offers a convincing portrayal of an introvert tucking itself away beneath its hat and hiding from the world. It’s a distinctly non-threatening piece character design, a static yet personable object that feels part Pixar, part Studio Ghibli, part Flos.
Switch Mori on and tap the stem to wake the device and an elaborate start-up theatre ensues, with the device appearing to run through phases of shyness and curiosity as it wakes. The illuminations cycle through a range of colours, responding to touch and voice, while the fabric body (25 per cent real wool and available in four colours) also incorporates sensors. Mori’s onboard AI will, in time, learn to recognise different people and environments, as well as run through actions in response to commands or taps. New 'personality' quirks and responses will continue to evolve and emerge.
So what’s it all for? Wang describes the device as ‘something to relax and calm you down’, with inbuilt relaxation programs triggered by resting a hand on Mori’s 'head'. In this mode, ambient sounds and lights are generated as part of a guided breathing session. These immersive sessions – forests, seashores, etc – are all accompanied by a swirling light show to help transport you into a different state of mind. Of course, Mori also functions as a Bluetooth speaker as well as a regular light.
Ultimately, OKA wants Mori to be a piece of mindful technology, an object that becomes more and more in sync with the humans around it, thanks in part to the company’s ‘Attentive Intelligence Engine’. Think of it as an alarm clock with character, one that welcomes you home after work, with eyelids that flicker and droop as the evening turns into the small hours, perhaps encouraging you to finish up and go to bed.
This dependence on contextually powered AI also shapes Mori’s response to other stimuli, which it usually translates into movement and light, rather than speech and sound. In this respect, it’s more adjacent to a giant Tamagotchi than it is to an Alexa, but still a step down from a cat.
Mori is the first in what OKA hopes to be a suite of five such mindful ‘Artifacts’, each of which uses robotics and AI technology to offer a new spin on emotional response. Mori’s role is to ‘explore the relationship between humans and their immediate physical environment’, rather than chase diary dates or offer reminders for chores. No two Mori devices will ever be alike – put two or three together and watch them communicate in different ways.
Whether you treat it as animated nightlight, sound therapist, spirited speaker or just a digital pet, Mori shows the potential of immobile yet highly engaged AI-powered objects. With OKA poised to reveal its portfolio of more animated Artifacts in the months to come, we’ll keep you posted.
Mori Founder Edition (limited to 500 units), $699, OKA, OneKindArtefact.com