Japanese obsessed with robots is not just a cliché. Over the years, many companies have been doing their best for their enthusiasm, but few successful products have come out. A humanoid robot called Pepper carries the hope of the founder of Softbank Group and billionaire Sun Zhengyi, which should change the status quo. However, cultural conflicts and artificial intelligence have become key barriers to the Pepper program. As the first robot to be given emotions, Pepper was introduced to the market in 2014. After that, Softbank promoted the company and promised that the equipment is mature enough to take over the clerk, receptionist and translator to handle some matters. “This is not for dialogue,†said an official of the Fujieda City Government, which is located in central Japan and has a population of about 140,000. "We mainly think of it as a tablet," he said, referring to a touch screen on the chest of the robot. Now, it seems that Pepper is destined to follow the footsteps of Honda's soccer robot ASIMO and Sony's QRIO robot, becoming the latest robot in Japan. The dialogue with the machine developers shows that all the elements of success are in place. The only downside is that mistakes in decision-making, missed opportunities, and finally can only be dismissed. SebasTIen Cagnon is an engineer who has been involved in Pepper development. When Softbank acquired the French company Aldebaran SA in 2012, he joined the Japanese team. That year, he and his colleagues went to an Apple store and were told that the robots were able to provide good customer service like real people. “Seeing all these Apple employees are busy with the few customers in the store, I realize how big our gap is,†said Kagnoon, who left Softbank in March and founded his own. Robot consulting company. Aldebaran can't blend with the culture of Softbank. When French colleagues go out for a few weeks, Japanese engineers will be dissatisfied. Aldebaran's employees were accustomed to the flat structure, but suddenly found that many of their decisions were subject to a second review by the Tokyo manager team. The Japanese parent company created SoftBank RoboTIcs Corp. to oversee the business and sell Pepper, and appointed Fumihide Tomozawa as the business manager to oversee R&D, but he neither speaks English nor speaks French. Sun Zhengyi sent his close ally and senior network engineer Takashi Tsutsui to take charge of the technology. “The company is basically responsible for project managers who don’t know robots or artificial intelligence,†said Andrew Gambardella, who spent a year in the company’s artificial intelligence research. “They lack vision. And the direction, just recruit me and say 'do artificial intelligence'." Softbank admits that pulling Aldebaran into the company does have a challenge, but said that most of the conflicts are expected in the process of converting samples into commercial products. Since the launch of the product, the company has also made numerous improvements to Pepper's hardware and software based on the data collected. “Talking about the interaction between humans and robots, the combination is infinite. At first we might have underestimated this,†said Kazutaka Hasumi, senior director of the Softbank Robotics division. “We are still in the behavioral pattern collection phase, which is a step before we start applying deep learning techniques.†Many of Softbank's key features—such as emotional analysis of voice, visual, and voice—are outsourced, further marginalizing Aldebaran. As of the delivery of the Pepper robot in June 2015, Aldebaran founder Bruno Maisonnier has left and took away several major R&D personnel. A woman shoots Pepper in a softbank store in Japan Pepper's main selling point - the emotional engine - has become a stumbling block. The software is based in part on the idea of ​​Shunji Mitsuyoshi, a quirky sculptor with a Ph.D. in engineering. His algorithm transforms Pepper's external stimulus into an input stream and then simulates human expression responses, but French engineers found the software unusable. An insider who asked not to be named said that they gave up trying to persuade Softbank to abandon Mitsuyoshi's company AGI as a supplier because Sun Zheng is closely related to the latter. Without machine learning and artificial intelligence, Softbank engineers can only work hard to write code that combines the data input by the sensors into corresponding emotional effects. Therefore, Pepper often turns from satisfaction to fear and happiness in a matter of seconds, because it can only understand some specific signals and does not have true emotions. According to people familiar with the matter, the development of the emotional engine will take time, and the Pepper robot, which was sold to corporate users in 2015, turned off the expression function. Softbank is currently preparing to launch robots in China and the United States. “I'm not sure I can read the expression to increase service functionality,†said Morten Paulsen, head of Japanese research at CLSA's Asia Pacific market, focusing on industrial automation giant FANUC. "" There are a few Peppers in my office building, but I can't see anyone swaying in front of it. They are basically a comic version of the iPad. †However, they have successfully established a first-class mechanical system. Pepper has more than 20 motors and a very dexterous arm that expresses the human body language. Multiple cameras, microphones, and depth sensors allow Pepper to communicate with people and respond to touch. It can even mimic breathing and sleep in standby mode. Consumers should thank Softbank for their willingness to bear the loss, and each robot sells for only $1,800, which ordinary people can afford. In Japan, potential buyers can interact with Pepper in the nationwide mobile phone store network of Softbank. Taiwanese manufacturers have been suppliers to Foxconn, iPhone, PlayStaTIons and GoPros and are now responsible for the hardware manufacturing of robots. “When you see what a robot can do and can't do, you know how important the Pepper project is, because its interaction with humans is still very difficult,†Paulson said. A resort in northern Japan bought three robots and expects Pepper to welcome guests and introduce the in-store facilities. Instead, the robot was downgraded to a tablet for kids to entertain. An entertainment hall also found the lack of robots and did not intend to renew. Sun Zhengyi has always known the world with great enthusiasm. Once the project is unsuccessful, it will be abandoned. At the moment, he seems to have focused his attention on new, larger goals. The softbank billionaire founder bought chip designer ARM for $32 billion in September. Just this month, he also announced a $100 billion fund with the Saudi government to invest in high-tech companies. Whether the Pepper project still needs to be done depends entirely on Sun Zhengyi. He once said that he dreamed of having an emotional robot as early as childhood. There are signs that he is not ready to give up. An email from Bloomberg showed that late last year, at an internal meeting attended by Softbank executives, Sun Zheng went to the whiteboard and drew a bear with ears, a tablet computer, and a look-up robot that looked like Roomba. Pepper's successor, nicknamed Cooman, will also have his own feelings. "Sun Justice is proud of Pepper and always shows off in front of a variety of visiting VIPs," said Softong's former engineer Kaegong. "Whenever he sees a robot, he will shine his eyes." 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