RIP Pepper the Robot (2014-2020) - Gizmodo

Pepper the robot meets Eurostar customers at St Pancras International station in London, England on October 23, 2018.

Japanese telecom giant SoftBank halted production of Pepper the robot in August of 2020, according to a new report from Reuters. And it seems unlikely that new ones will ever roll off the manufacturing line.

Pepper was developed to be a helper robot with human-like body language, the ability to maintain eye contact, and plenty of small talk. Pepper could be used for things like customer service and giving directions, and this robot even learned how to play the ball-and-cup game.

While Pepper could do a number of useful things, there just wasn’t much consumer demand.

SoftBank president Masayoshi Son introduces Pepper in Urayasu, Japan, on June 5, 2014.

Pepper was introduced to the world by Masayoshi Son, president of SoftBank, on June 15, 2014 at a press conference in suburban Tokyo, Japan. Pepper was billed as having an “emotion engine” and sold for roughly $2,200.

A boy plays with Pepper the robot at Westfield Mall in San Francisco on Dec. 22, 2016.

The Pepper robot was manufactured by Foxconn in China but was promoted and sold around the world. Only about 27,000 units were ever produced during its six years in existence, according to Reuters.

Pepper interacts with guests at the Dentsu party during the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity on September 10, 2015 in Singapore.

Pepper reportedly knew at least 15 languages and had advanced speech recognition, allowing you to “talk” with the robot in a natural style.

Guests interact with Pepper the robot during the 2017 New Yorker TechFest at Cedar Lake on October 6, 2017 in New York City.

While many humanoid robots of the past focused on a machine’s ability to pick things up, Pepper really only needed arms for gesturing. The touchscreen display delivered more information and was a useful input device, but it lacked the novelty of a robot butler handing you a drink, as just one example.

Pepper and cleaning robot Whiz are seen during a demonstration at the entrance of a hotel for patients suffering mild symptoms of covid-19 in Tokyo, Japan on April 30, 2020.

Pepper became theoretically more useful during the covid-19 pandemic, as the need to maintain social distancing between humans was necessary. But that fact made it particularly ironic that SoftBank halted production in August of 2020—the height of the coronavirus pandemic in countries like the U.S. and UK.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is introduced to Pepper the Robot by participant Lilly Antonia on Girls’ Day on April 26, 2017 in Berlin, Germany.

Remember when we said Pepper only needed arms for gesturing? That’s not entirely true. Pepper also shook hands.

French President Francois Hollande shakes hands with Pepper during his visit to the Viva technology event in Paris on June 30, 2016.

In fact, Pepper met plenty of world leaders over the years, shaking hands with people like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. As we’ve pointed out before, shaking hands with a robot is a very weird thing to do.

An elderly resident looks to Pepper during a presentation of two robots at the August-Stunz-Altenzentrum senior care facility on November 28, 2018 in Frankfurt, Germany.

The robot was promoted to businesses like nursing homes and elder care facilities, but Pepper was bad at the things older people need the most help with: Picking things up, reaching object from across the room, and help getting up from a sitting position.

Pepper also isn’t very cuddly, something that robotic pets seem much better suited for.

An employee of sushi restaurant Hamazushi interacts with Pepper during a press preview in Saitama, Japan on February 2, 2017.

When used in a restaurant, Pepper could take your order or help you find a table. But restaurant robots had been tried before, especially in the 1980s, and fizzled out back then as well.

Pepper delivers information to passengers of the French railway company SNCF on March 2, 2016 at the Nort-sur-Erdre train station, one of three stations Pepper appeared in the Pays de la Loire region of France.

Unlike some of the more agile robots in existence, like the Atlas robot from Boston Dynamic, Pepper couldn’t jump over obstacles or do backflips.

Pepper was more or less a desktop computer on wheels that could tell a joke. And while that could probably describe most robots of the past century, we really expected them to be doing much more useful tasks by now. We are living in the future, after all, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson hugs Pepper at the Looking to the Next Frontier session during the 2015 Clinton Global Initiative’s Annual Meeting at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers on September 28, 2015 in New York City.

Pepper was also sold to museums to direct visitors and provide more information about exhibits. But conflict with SoftBank’s French business reportedly hampered the robot’s development.

SoftBank bought the French robotics company Aldebaran in 2012 and layoffs are expected to be deep. Roughly half of Aldebaran’s 330 staff will be cut in September, according to Reuters, and sales staff in the U.S. and UK have already seen major reductions.

SoftBank Corp’s humanoid robots Pepper (white) and Boston Dynamics’ robots SPOT (yellow) dance and sing before the Nippon Professional Baseball league match between SoftBank Hawks and Rakuten Golden Eagles in Fukuoka on July 10, 2020.

Ultimately, Pepper was a novelty that showed up at sports games and conventions. But it’s tough to build a large and profitable robotics business on that kind of novelty.

A man walks between “Pepper” humanoid robots in a hotel in Tokyo on July 20, 2016.

Au revoir, Pepper. You had a short but largely dignified life. And you didn’t try to start the robot uprising—something for which we’ll be eternally grateful.

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