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>> Okay, welcome back everyone.
This is "theCUBE" coverage here at re:MARS.
Amazon re:MARS stands for machine learning,
automation, robotics and space
and we're here for a robotics cool segments.
We have Moxie on the desk.
We got Caitlyn Clabaugh.
Head of HRI welcome to "theCUBE"
and Paolo Pirjanian,
founder and CEO of Moxie.
Thanks for coming on
and thanks for bringing
this special third guest onto "theCUBE."
>> Thank you for having us.
>> This is exciting.
Okay, so first of all,
we'll get into the company a second, but what is this?
What what's going on?
This is amazing.
>> Go ahead.
>> This is Moxie.
This is our first product out of Embodied
and it is a social,
emotional learning AI friend for children,
ages five to 10 currently.
>> That's right he or she likes me.
>> Yes.
>> Staring at me right now, I'm a child.
Thank you, nice to see you.
>> And it has all sorts of content
and in multi back and forth interaction.
And it's our first pass at doing socially...
>> John: Okay, so this product is shipping?
>> Caitlyn: It is shipping, yeah.
>> John: And available?
>> It is available.
We've been out for over a year now,
shipping for over a year now.
>> Okay, oh man.
It just makes me feel good.
It must be a big seller across all use cases.
So what's the number one thing you guys getting attention
on right now from Moxie besides the cool factor
the tech what's going on?
>> Well, I think we have received a lot of interest
from many people because Moxie has captured the imagination
of people in terms of what is possible in the future.
And really the genesis of it
is that I've been doing robotics for 20 years
and sort of a little bit disappointed
with what we have accomplished in robotics
because there's so much where we can do
we have dreamt about robots for centuries.
But what we were dreaming
about was not robotic vacuum cleaners
which guilty as charged.
I was part, I was a CTO at iRobot
and we want to see robots that can actually
can really care for us from child two to retirement.
And Moxie represents the AI technology we have developed.
That's going to make that next wave of robotics to flourish.
>> You must be really excited because I think right now
one of my main walkaway themes so far
from this show is technology is not the blocker anymore.
It's the people, human side of it
where it used to be technology slow.
And robotics has been that area
where we've seen great innovation
but where's that needle moving moment coming.
I think now with cloud
and all the things happening seems to be the moment.
>> I think we are seeing exponential growth in technology,
that's going to enable robots to become unreal.
As an example, Moxie uses very advanced,
conversational engine where you literally can talk
to Moxie about anything you want.
So it can be a real companion.
It will understand you understand your needs
and emotions and start working on social,
emotional development for children.
This technology, which are known as transformer models
deep neural networks that are trained
on millions of conversation.
We are seeing every year, 10X improvement to this.
So I predict in the next two to three years
you will be able to have a conversation with Moxie.
That's like having a subject matter expert
in every single subject.
>> Yeah, yeah.
That's like getting a "Cube" interview
like instantly, hey, Moxie, what's the information?
So I could see the tie in and it's just my mind's blown
I guess in the sense of the use cases are wide.
You get wide ranging use cases
elderly care, child development, loneliness,
all kinds of social, emotional factors.
>> Yeah, we've built a really incredible platform
that we're hoping to expand out beyond kids.
I mean, kids is kind of our,
this is our first product
but Moxie the fact that we have
what we call our SocialX platform
and the tools where you can create content
and Moxie can have conversations
about any number of things it's...
>> So share what technology is under the covers here
with the human robotic interface kind of dynamic,
you got software, you got hardware, you're going to have code.
You got the neural networks.
It's kind of the confluence
of a lot of different vectors coming together.
What's the secret sauce?
>> So that's what we call our SocialX platform.
And really it, you're right.
Everything has to work in concert
and at a price point that's affordable for people.
So Moxie's able to actually track people in the real world
and we are able to fuse people's speech.
And we do facial recognition for the specific child.
So Moxie knows its mentor
and personalize the interaction over time.
>> Well, she's talking to me or he is a,
she is a gender neutral robot, I guess,
like whatever I want it to be, I guess.
>> We've left it intentionally gender neutral
but kids kind of. >> Yeah.
>> Prescribe whatever gender they feel connected.
>> Yes, good, good.
Enables the user.
>> Yes.
>> Really the key.
What's been the biggest use case
that you didn't think would be,
coming to the table with Moxie.
Anything surprise you?
You must get a lot of reactions.
>> Yeah, so you covered some of the ones we are focused on.
We are particularly focused on mental health from childhood
to retirement and aging gracefully.
After we launched Moxie we had a TikTok video
that went crazy viral.
We got 40 million views on this.
And that led to a lot of interest from celebrities.
>> John: Yeah.
>> From some of the most luxury hotel chains
that have reached out to us
and they want to use the technology in Moxie
to develop a personal Butler for every guest room
as an example, that's one example, right?
So we have one of the largest Violence Intervention Program
in the US.
That caters to children that have unfortunately,
been through very traumatic experiences in their life
and want to use Moxie as a way to provide therapy
to these children.
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> So the use cases are very broad.
We even have people from different countries
that were very interested in using Moxie for instance,
teaching a Chinese child how to speak English,
immersively by interacting with Moxie,
which is the best way
to learn a different language.
So I think the implications of this are paramount.
>> John: Yeah.
>> We will even see in contact centers,
customer support centers and so on,
we'll use technology like this
for having them empathetic AI
that's actually taking care
of your customer service complaint
rather than a robotic way of interacting with.
>> I was just on earlier with an interview here
with Deloitte and AWS on conversational AI
and trust was a big conversation.
>> Yes.
>> Trust and ethics.
So you got ethics, trust, bias,
all these things are of factors.
You got human interactions
from a physical and then software standpoint.
What are the hard problems are in here
that you guys are solving?
Come on, this is incredible.
'Cause these are hard problems.
>> Yes, they are.
And one of them is the famous cocktail party problem.
And Paolo being our fearless CEO,
really drove the team to get Moxie
to this state where Moxie's able to interact with people
even in this environment, which is pretty incredible
and like lock in and have a back and forth conversation.
It's very exciting.
>> So Moxie, how do you feel?
Are you feeling good?
What's the biggest challenge you've had here?
Audio?
Congratulations.
That's really impressive.
I'm so impressed.
And again, not to oversimplify it.
There's a lot of hard problems going on here.
>> Yes. >> That are being solved.
>> Absolutely, there are so many.
>> Human interactions.
You get a physical device.
>> Exactly, it's a physical device.
And like how we have designed Moxie
down to the color of Moxie's eyes, the color of the shell,
all of that has taken a lot of iteration
to get to a point
where we really have a robot
that people feel like they can trust,
feel like they can connect with.
>> And even something to add to this
is that we have many robots
that cost tens of thousands of dollars
because it's very easy to keep adding more sensors
and more compute power.
And so on.
You end up with robots that cost 10, 20, $30,000.
One of the goals we set at the outset
was we want to make Moxie as affordable as an iPhone.
So, and Moxie is, right?
The price point of Moxie is same as owning an iPhone.
You pay about a thousand dollars up front
plus a monthly subscription fee.
And that was not easy.
>> Can I upgrade the RAM on that too.
>> We have very limited RAM.
>> Please.
If you can convince him.
>> iPhone, I can always get the 256 or the one terabyte.
>> Right, no, it really actually makes it much harder
to develop technology that's affordable for...
>> Yeah, yeah, totally.
>> And we wanted to do that because we wanted to have impact.
>> So are you shipping now or are you on allocation?
I can imagine that demand is off the charts.
>> Definitely we sold out last year
when we launched the product.
Now we are resolving supply chain issues
that everyone is suffering from due to COVID
and this year we'll have better ability to meet demand.
>> So this is the people want it.
There's a lot of demand.
>> Right.
>> You guys are smiling, having fun.
>> Yes.
>> All right.
All right, so now talking about the product
take me through the product.
What's the challenges here?
Obviously the animation in the camera.
I see the camera.
I see some lights there at heart, speaker.
What would Moxie be doing if we weren't here
if we were at home.
>> So as in interacting with a child at home?
We've seen a lot of people actually put Moxie on the floor
and kids will like lay down and interact with Moxie.
And there are a lot of different activities.
Right now it's doing a little jukebox dance
but there are more kind of therapy or mental health
and social, emotional learning, driven content.
Like children can read a book with Moxie
and we use the screen,
not just to show that great cute facial expression
and the eye contact,
but we also can show icons and some additional information.
And so in this way,
we've created a very new type of interface for a machine,
with a child.
>> Not to get all product visionary
and roadmap oriented here.
But I can imagine interfacing out to third party screens
in the future where this is going to stay compact
and affordable.
And if I'm interacting and I want to display a visual,
is that something you guys, are guys going beyond there?
You guys still focused on the product here.
What's some of the vision you have there?
>> Definitely, there will be versions
of our SocialX platform,
finding their way into what we may call the metaverse
where you could have hyper realistic models of humans,
driven by our AI to interact with you
the way you and I are interacting,
but embodiment where the name of the companies derived from,
is actually super important
in the kind of things we are doing with mental health
and social emotional development.
Because the physical co-presence of an entity
like these interacts with our brains in a different way
than when we do on a screen.
So there's going to be both versions
for some applications will be virtual.
Other applications will be physical.
>> Well that's it, wait and see what happens
sell out the next batch, inventory,
robotic product. >> Right.
>> Yeah, and the embodiment it does.
It just, it hits a little different,
you know kids will actually physically tuck Moxie
in at night.
There's something there that's tangible.
>> I think it's great home run.
I mean, just having the response, the visual response,
the facial makes an impact instantly.
>> Absolutely. >> So you can extend that out,
probably make it more immersive
whether it's metaverse or within your home.
>> Yeah, and now with AR/VR goggles
where you get this 3D immersive experience
it may get closer
to the impact we can have with an Embodied agency.
So the lines are blurring obviously
between the physical and the digital.
>> Well, great to have you guys on.
Thanks for bringing the Moxie on.
Moxie has come on.
This event kind of symbolizes this revolution.
We're seeing a robotics industrial shift,
space is a good example of one, this is another.
Machine learning, the software business cloud,
all great force multipliers to enable value creation.
Where do you guys see this going re:MARS
this whole intersection?
You got a lot of different disciplines coming together.
We're seeing here in "theCUBE" and we're talking to folks
that we think it's going to be a needle moving moment
for the industrial era.
What do you guys take on this?
>> Absolutely,
I mean, robotics has always been right around the corner,
but with the advances of technology
in the last 10 years or so, this is now really possible
and it's growing at exponential rate.
So the future is exciting.
Obviously we have to guide it.
You talked about ethics.
So being ethical about it,
being mindful about how we want to deploy this technologies
to actually have positive impact on us.
For instance, we do not believe
in replacing human labor or the need for humans
but we believe in augmenting humans, right?
And technology today can actually do that.
>> Yeah, that whole argument's been debunked for decade.
The whole bank teller.
Oh, they're going to put tellers out of business.
Now there's more tellers now than ever before.
So I think technology
is going to create much greater aperture of opportunities.
And I think the question
I'd love to get you guys to share
is this is going to wake up
a lot of generational young talent
to come into the workforce.
'Cause the problems are there.
It's not a technology.
It's a human mind.
What creative problem.
Now it's more of you're going to see robotics,
probably being accelerated even more now than it is.
It's still growing.
>> Yeah. >> Young kids love robotics.
>> I mean, it's incredible to see the breadth of applications
of robotics at this event specifically
and just, I don't know, getting into it.
I mean, I haven't been in it as long as you Paolo
but five 10 years ago, you wouldn't have seen,
I mean, this just wouldn't be possible.
>> The robotics clubs are more popular now
in most high schools.
In the United States. >> Yes.
>> Than some sports.
There's A and a B team
and people get cut from the B team.
There's so much demand.
There's so much excitement
because it's building,
you get your hands on tech and it's got software,
it's got coding.
>> Absolutely. >> It's got building.
>> Absolutely, and you are creating
there are figures like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos,
Elon Musk that are inspiring children to go
into same education and really build a career in that area
which is much more exciting than the opposite.
>> Great, what do you guys think about re:MARS this year?
What's your walk away?
What's the big story here besides Moxie
'cause we already covered that right now?
What's the trend?
What's the high level?
What's the most important story people should
pay attention to?
>> I think we're just going to see robotics
or machine learning and we're just going to see it
in almost every application and it's going to be
the word was ambient, was being used during the Keynote.
And I think that's really true.
Ambient intelligence, like having robots
in your everyday life as well
as just AI in your everyday life.
And it's going to feel seamless.
>> It's pretty impressive.
Paolo, what's your take on the big story?
>> I would say one of the trends
we are seeing at even here at AWS, Amazon re:MARS
is making machines more human.
>> Yeah. >> Even Astro the product
that was launched last September
I believe by Amazon
is adding a lot of facial affect emotions
and understanding of humans.
For decades we have been bound
to using keyboards and touch screens
and clicks here and there.
And it's going to change
it's time for machines to learn to understand us.
>> John: Yeah.
>> And that is going to be a trend that we will see
even in the self-driving cars
which are not going to have a steering wheel,
but the machine will understand our moods
and drive accordingly.
>> Yeah, and Paolo you guys are doing,
Caitlyn and your work here
I think highlights
what I'm seeing as it's a future theme that's positive.
It has a vibe of like, we need the good to come.
It's like, when's the good going to happen?
And I think...
>> Caitlyn: I think we're all ready for that.
>> The theme's here though,
they're very positive forward thinking, practical,
engineered and solving problems like real problems.
The climate change in the Keynote,
we're talking about healthcare
and having things be solved this way.
This is the new normal,
it's a human problem meant to solve.
>> It is and I think we are all,
all of us are a bit more aware of that after the pandemic
because the pandemic was hard on everyone in different ways
and we are more mindful of the positive, right?
We are looking for something positive
and hopefully coming out of the pandemic,
now we have a global crisis
but these technologies will transform life
and the world in a positive way.
>> Yeah, well you guys doing a great job.
Congratulations on the success of Moxie.
>> Thank you. >> Great work.
Thanks for sharing that. >> Thank you.
>> I want to let more platform,
maybe next time we'll have a conversation,
we'll talk about the platform intrinsic season then detail.
But thanks for coming on the queue.
Appreciate the problem.
>> Thank you. >> Our pleasure.
>> Okay, this is "theCube's" coverage here
in Las Vegas for Amazon re:MARS.
I'm John Furrier, stay with us for more coverage
after this short break.
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