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“Introducing George: your new household robot companion made to improve your mental well-being.”
George is a speculative design product that came as a result of a research process following the rising of mental illnesses in the latest generations and data exploitation by the part of big tech companies such as Amazon. The concept is that George, a fully automated, AI-powered robot, could treat you and diagnose you when you are in distress by recognising behavioural patterns connected to certain mental illnesses with the user’s activity within Amazon apps, smart objects, their own house or peers - thus, allowing Amazon to profit out of a major problem of society.
Check George’s Instruction Manual below. For the research book, click here: researchbook_george.pdf
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Looking back on what was discovered after the research into both topics, some important questions arise concerning the boundaries of technology versus human rights: wouldn’t George affect positively so many more people, since it would make mental aid much more affordable and approachable to many individuals at a time? But, on another hand, how ethical could it be to let a corporate system profit out of our personal problems and exploring our privacy on top? And aside the capitalistic approach, how okay would it be to let a robot take over one of the most human of jobs - psychotherapy?![]()
George is a speculative design product that came as a result of a research process following the rising of mental illnesses in the latest generations and data exploitation by the part of big tech companies such as Amazon. The concept is that George, a fully automated, AI-powered robot, could treat you and diagnose you when you are in distress by recognising behavioural patterns connected to certain mental illnesses with the user’s activity within Amazon apps, smart objects, their own house or peers - thus, allowing Amazon to profit out of a major problem of society.
Check George’s Instruction Manual below. For the research book, click here: researchbook_george.pdf
Looking back on what was discovered after the research into both topics, some important questions arise concerning the boundaries of technology versus human rights: wouldn’t George affect positively so many more people, since it would make mental aid much more affordable and approachable to many individuals at a time? But, on another hand, how ethical could it be to let a corporate system profit out of our personal problems and exploring our privacy on top? And aside the capitalistic approach, how okay would it be to let a robot take over one of the most human of jobs - psychotherapy?
The final project resulted in a live performance of the presentation of George to the market, and was completed with 3 animations of George in action, a website and a realistic - yet sarcastic - instruction manual to make the product as realistic as possible.
The script to the presentation is available here: script_george.pdf
