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Robot as Body

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Command Line Heroes • • Robot as Body | Command Line Heroes

Robot as Body | Command Line Heroes

About the episode

For years, prosthetic technology focused on form over function, on masking lost limbs, rather than agency and usability. But things are changing. Innovations in robotics are giving more people more options, with lower thresholds of entry—and lower price tags, too.

Tilly Lockey takes us through her journey with prosthetic arms. Brian Schulz gives some history of mechanical prosthetics, and what it means for people to reach embodiment with their devices. Tyler Hayes talks about the software that made advancements in assistive technology possible. Charlie Kemp discusses his work building universal robot interfaces, and how they can benefit everyone. And Henry and Jane Evans explain how robots can help a person reach beyond their body’s limitations.

Command Line Heroes Team Red Hat original show

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Transcript

Hi, my name is Tilly. I am a motivational speaker, 15-year-old influencer, content creator, blogger, and bionic model. Hi Tilly. I'm really excited to get to interview you. Tilly Lockey and I were hanging out on Zoom the other day. She was showing me her extraordinary arms: two prosthetic forearms with robotic hands. They're black, 3D-printed plastic, which is striking against Tilly's white skin. But she also swaps on whatever color she wants: pink, purple, sometimes even a jewel-encrusted option for—you know—red-carpet events. My favorite part about the hands is how they look and how actually personable and customizable they are. I switch up all the cases to meet every outfit or my mood, just however I'm feeling that day. That's what's really fun about them. They're called Hero Arms. That's how they make her feel. Not like someone who needs extra help, but like a hero. You could be out with Marvel. But that's exactly how I look at them, how everybody else looks at them, and how they make me feel as well. You just feel like a superhero all the time. When you spend some time with Tilly, you can't help noticing that she really is part of a new generation of prosthetic users. Her instinct isn't to hide her arms or hope they look biological. She wants you to see them. She's got bionic pride. I'm Saron Yitbarek, and this is Command Line Heroes, an original podcast from Red Hat. All season, we're exploring the frontiers of robotics. This time we focus on a field that's rapidly advancing the field of robotic limbs. In science fiction, you sometimes see robots that are indistinguishable from human bodies. Think of the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica or Ava in Ex Machina. We just assume that's where the tech would go. But something kind of different is happening in the world of prosthetics. As they advance, we get bionic arms like Tilly's, arms that celebrate their robotics. These are powerful, helpful additions to the human body. Not something to hide. This episode, we're discovering some of the most profound changes that the field of robotics has made. You're not un-able. You just have to find a novel way to do things. One of the earliest mechanical prosthetics was invented in 1912. A sawmill operator got too close to the saw, lost his right hand, and came back to work sporting what he called the Dorrance Split Hook—named after himself, D.W. Dorrance. His invention allowed amputees to grip and manipulate objects, a big leap forward at the time. Still, it'd be another century before the prosthetics industry really came into its own. The earliest prosthetic I'm aware of is a carved wooden and leather toe that was used on an Egyptian mummy. Brian Schulz is the scientific program manager in charge of prosthetics at the Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development. That means he knows how we got from wooden toes to Tilly's robo arms. The U.S. government is responsible for a lot of those advances. Back in the early 20th century, the time of D.W. Dorrance, the United States Congress was setting aside money to buy prosthetics for wounded soldiers. But major research investments didn't arrive until the early 2000s when war vets from Iraq and Afghanistan were coming home with missing limbs. Around there, the revolutionizing prosthetics program started. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) took the lead on that. I think it was shortly after 2000, and they developed what was then the DEKA arm and is now called the LUKE arm. That was the first robotic full-upper-limb-to-the-shoulder prosthetic device. The revolutionizing prosthetics program really was a revolution in the field, an unprecedented amount of funding and support for new tech. It's now coming to fruition in some very interesting things like the restoration of touch-to-prosthetic limbs and direct brain control and osseointegration. Thanks to government research, prosthetic limbs can be entwined with the human body. Hear Schulz describing their work on osseointegration, for example. This is where the device is built directly into the bone. There's no socket. There's no skin-related issues of wearing the socket and discomfort. You have a much better perception of what the device is doing and much better control of the device. But if it's connected directly to the bone, it's much more secure, and it's easier to use a heavier device. It also allows a pathway into the body, which means... Neural activation. Then, you have the potential to pass wires through the inside of the implant to attach to nerves and to have internal electromyography electrodes that can control the device much better and provide a sensation of touch from the prosthetic device's fingertips. It's an intimate new level of connectivity. The tech is starting to catch up to the hopes and dreams of users like Tilly Lockey. But wait, how do you develop the neural pathways to operate a robotic arm? Is that something you need to train your brain to do? Not according to Tilly. It was actually really easy and simple, because you think the movement that you want to do, so you think about closing your fist, and your fist closes. You think about opening your fist, and your fist opens. Same with your wrist movements. You just think about doing the action that you want to do, and it does it. Tilly was born with a condition called meningitis septicemia. She lost both hands, and some fingers and toes, when she was just a year and a half old. But when she got her first Hero Arms at age 13, she took to them immediately. It was like they'd always been a part of her. I didn't need any training with them. As soon as I put them on, I could use them. I was gripping, I was moving my wrists, I was doing gestures. It was so simple. My brain was already programmed to do those actions, so it worked straightaway. Behind the scenes, Tilly's Hero Arms include myoelectric technology that reads the electrical signals her muscles produce. When she flexes specific muscle groups in her forearms, sensors detect that activity and translate it into movement commands for her robotic hands. It's that simple. The software is taking these bioelectric signals from the person, and it's figuring out: what is this person trying to do? Tyler Hayes is the CEO of Atom Limbs. His startup is working on a next-generation prosthetic that can provide sensory feedback, but he got his start in the field just trying to help his own daughter. She was born missing her left hand, and so I was looking into what was available for her, and I was really disappointed in the options. There were options that looked lifelike but couldn't do anything, and there were options that could do things but looked very robotic. And I felt like there should be better options available for her. Hayes spent years figuring out how the software behind modern prosthetics actually works. And he learned that at its heart, this tech is about pattern recognition. So every time someone moves their phantom limb, or moves their residual limb, or thinks about moving their phantom limb, there are bioelectric signals that are generated by the nervous system. And those bioelectric signals have consistent patterns in them. So the software is looking for those patterns and saying, "Oh, this pattern looks like the person was trying to open their hand. This pattern looks like the person was trying to close their hand." In a way, it's like modern prosthetics learn to read your mind. Machine learning algorithms can be trained to recognize the specific muscle activation patterns that correspond to different intended movements. The more someone uses their prosthetic, the better the software becomes at interpreting their intentions. What's really exciting about where we're headed is that we're getting much better at this pattern recognition, and we're able to give people more intuitive control over their prosthetic devices. So instead of having to think about, "I need to flex this specific muscle in this specific way," people can just think about what they want to do, and the prosthetic does it. For Tilly, this intuitive control is part of what makes her Hero Arms feel like extensions of her own body. But there's another aspect to embodiment that goes beyond just the technical capabilities of the device. I love that they look different. I love that they're obviously robotic. I don't want them to look like biological hands because that's not what they are. They're something better. They're bionic arms, and I'm proud of that. Tilly's attitude represents a real shift in how people think about prosthetics. Instead of trying to hide or camouflage the fact that she uses assistive technology, she celebrates it. She's part of a growing movement of people who see their prosthetics not as medical devices, but as enhancements, as expressions of personal style, even as statements of identity. I get so many messages from young people who say that seeing me has helped them feel more confident about their own differences, whether they have prosthetics or not. And that means everything to me. I want people to know that different is beautiful, that different is powerful. But embodiment in robotics isn't just about individual prosthetics. It can also be about extending our reach into the world around us. Sometimes, the most profound applications of robotic technology come when we think beyond replacing lost capabilities and start thinking about expanding human agency in entirely new ways. This brings us to the story of Henry Evans, a man whose relationship with robotics has redefined what it means to be present in the world. Henry's story begins in 2002, when he was just 40 years old. He was the CFO of a startup. He was healthy. We had four young children. He was my world. That's Jane Evans, Henry's wife. Henry was driving to work one morning when he felt a massive headache. Something was terribly wrong. He had what's called a basal artery dissection, which is essentially a stroke in the brain stem. It left him what they call locked-in. So his mind is perfectly fine, but he can't speak, he can't move anything below his neck. He can move his eyes and his head slightly. Henry Evans was suddenly trapped inside his own body. He could think and understand everything happening around him, but he couldn't communicate or move. For someone who had been so active and engaged with the world, it was devastating. The doctors told us he would probably be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. They said we should consider putting him in a long-term care facility. But I knew Henry was still in there. I could see it in his eyes. Jane refused to give up on her husband. Over the years, they developed communication systems. Henry learned to use his eye movements to control a computer mouse, allowing him to type messages letter by letter. It was painstakingly slow, but it was a connection to the world. One time, early on, he was in the hospital and the doctors kept coming in and talking about him like he wasn't there. They were questioning whether his mind was really intact. So Henry started typing. He wrote them a long message in German, explaining the medical procedure they were discussing. When I showed it to the doctors, they were shocked. I said to the doctors, "Oh, no. His mind is perfectly fine. He studied German in college and even spent a year abroad." I said, "He remembers all of it. He's writing to you in German." He laughed so hard. I thought he was going to fall out of the bed. But the doctors never bothered him again. They never came in and questioned his mind. Everybody stayed far away. To this day, he tells me it was almost worth having a basal artery dissection to see the look on their faces. Evans was very much there and hungry to be part of the world. Trapped inside his body, he kept his eyes open, looking for a solution. 10 years passed, though, and back at home, he began slipping into a depression. It was a regular day. I'm sitting. I'm brushing his teeth. I'm washing his face. I'm giving him medicine. He would have CNN on. And Ali Velshi was there with Dr. Charlie Kemp of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech. Charlie was presenting a PR2 robot. A PR2 robot. You might remember those from episode one this season. Made at Willow Garage in California, they're advanced, roughly humanoid, and capable of doing all kinds of basic jobs like folding laundry or grabbing you a cup of coffee. Henry turned to me and said, "Why can't that robot be an extension of my body?" And I said, "Why not?" They started Googling, found out PR2 robots were made in Menlo Park, just 20 minutes from their home. Evans contacted Willow Garage, set up a meeting. The folks at Willow Garage love the idea of a PR2 helping him out. He could maybe use it to feed himself or even shave himself. It could be his AMM, assistive mobile manipulator. So Charlie Kemp from the biomedical engineering department at Georgia Tech was brought in to develop an interface that Evans could use to control his new robot. If you can't scratch an itch for yourself, and you really try to think about what that would be like—it's like, "Oh my gosh. Even if I have someone like Jane, who's the ultimate caregiver, I don't want to be asking her to do something for me all the time, and every time it happens. I want to be able to do it for myself." Kemp and his team got to work, designing a way for Evans to control the PR2 so the robot could become an extension of his own intentions. They knew that, thanks to adaptive technology, he can move a mouse around a computer screen and click on items. They created an augmented reality interface. On the display, Evans might see a mock-up of his house or maybe a lab that he's visiting. The PR2 is there on the screen too. Evans can use the computer to move the robot around, almost like he's playing a video game. And the real PR2 moves in real space. He can control its arms and hands too. He can get basic jobs done, like shaving his face and putting things away in drawers. And here's the thing. It isn't just an interface for Evans alone. They've built this interface using standard web technologies. That ended up being really important later when we went beyond Henry—and Henry and Jane always… This wasn't just about helping them. The goal was... It was robots for humanity. It was to help anyone who could benefit from this technology. By using web-based standards that allowed other people to use this robot with whatever they are used to. So if they use a sip-and-puff controller, or a joystick, or if they use speech; however, they use the internet, they could use that same method to control the robot. That universality was important to Evans too. He founded Robots for Humanity to help others connect with the world via robotics. On their website, you see Ultramouse, which can be controlled via head movements, or WhiskeyBot, which helps you sip a single malt. There's even a Scratchbot. These may seem small, even comical in scope, but it's all about giving daily agency back to people like Henry Evans. It's a bold mission, and Kemp is the first to admit that robots have a way to go before they're ideal helpers for the disabled. One of the things we're working on, and I think this is a general trend, it's to make the robots friendlier, to make them more affordable, to make them lighter, more compact. Yeah, that PR2 robot, all 400 pounds of it, is only a starting point. The PR2 is fantastic but not terribly graceful. If it were to run over your feet, it would most likely crush your bone. It's a first effort at something extraordinary. Henry and Jane say that even getting a robot to scratch an itch is incredibly empowering for him. I wanted to make sure we gave Henry the last word here, so he prepared a final thought about his newfound work with robots. It's a terrible feeling of loss and helplessness to almost instantaneously go from being a highly productive member of society to being a daily burden on your loved ones, to not be able to do anything for anybody, including yourself. It's hard not to become despondent. So when an opportunity comes along to actually do something constructive with your life, you jump for it. It's like giving a starving man a way to earn a square meal. It gives your life purpose, which is everything. Just about everybody on the planet now uses technology to reach out and engage with the wider world. The stories in this episode make me realize we're all on a continuum, all using tech to varying degrees to help us make connections. Robotics are just operating at the upper end of things, pushing the limits of human agency. For Tilly, that meant helping to design her own hands. For Henry, that meant reaching beyond his body entirely. I'm Saron Yitbarek, and this is Command Line Heroes, an original podcast from Red Hat. Keep on coding. Okay. I want to share one last example of why these robotics matter. Henry was the ring bearer at his nephew's wedding. His body was in his bed back home, but he drove his robot up the aisle, gave them the rings, and everyone saw his beaming face on the robot's display. How's that for embodiment?

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About the show

Command Line Heroes

During its run from 2018 to 2022, Command Line Heroes shared the epic true stories of developers, programmers, hackers, geeks, and open source rebels, and how they revolutionized the technology landscape. Relive our journey through tech history, and use #CommandLinePod to share your favorite episodes.