Natasha Randall on Technology’s Impact on Our Sense of Purpose

Natasha Randall

Natasha Randall discusses how technology can help individuals cultivate a deeper sense of ikigai and enhance overall well-being in their lives in episode 54 of the Ikigai Podcast.

Her work focuses on human-robot interaction, specifically consumer-oriented social home robot design where she fuses elements of design, user experience, and market research. 


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Why Study Human-Robot Interaction?

Natasha, a researcher in the field of consumer robotics, sheds light on her motivation to study the intricate relationship between humans and robots. Through her research, she seeks to unravel the complex factors that shape our interactions with robots, and ultimately, to design robots that can better serve our needs and improve our quality of life.

Researching human-robot interaction

Nick: So it's a real joy to connect. And yeah, I stumbled upon your paper on ResearchGate. I couldn't believe it at first. I thought, what's this? So your paper is, "Finding ikigai: How robots can support meaning in later life"

And I thought, I'm going to read this. Your paper had all these citations to names I was familiar with. Actually, several people I've interviewed on my podcast. So I'm really glad we're talking to each other today. So yeah, what attracted you to research human-robot interaction?

Natasha: Yeah, so I had a pretty circuitous journey here. I've been in the field of human-robot interaction for about 10 years now, and I absolutely love it. I started off in marketing and business management, and so I did that for about 10 years.

And you could say that actually, I wanted to figure out what my ikigai was. Because I wasn't completely happy. One of my bachelor's degrees is in psychology, so I was looking at ways I could use that degree.

So I stumbled across human-robot interaction in that search. And really, for me, the first project, I'm from California, originally, and so my alma mater is UCSD in San Diego, and I reached out to a number of people working in human-robot interaction space there.

And the first project that I joined was actually using a replica of Albert Einstein's head. And we were looking at how people perceived that robot. And really, we're looking at it from a neurological perspective. So do different brain patterns get triggered when you're looking at this robot versus a real human?

Nick: Well, there you go. So that's a fascinating journey. So it seems like you might be a life student? Do you think that'll be the case?

Natasha: You could say that. It seems that way.

Ikigai: Meaning and Significance

Natasha shares how she incorporated the concept of ikigai into her study on human-robot interaction, and provides valuable insights into her deep understanding of the concept.

Ikigai is what makes your life significant and worthwhile

Nick: And so this brings up brings us to the theme of the episode, you frame your study for your paper around the concept of ikigai. So when did you stumble across the word ikigai?

Natasha: So this research that we did here was funded by Toyota Research Institute. And the person on that side who submitted the grant actually proposed this word and this concept. So there was a certain synergy to it because a lot of my work has been in the well-being space from a Western perspective.

So there seem to synergy to looking at how these two things connect. How these can really feed each other? And then how do we look at using robots to then support ikigai?

Nick: Well, I think it's important we understand the word. And as you know, it's greatly misunderstood outside of Japan. So how would you define it? If someone said, "Hey, Natasha, what is ikigai?" What would be your short answer?

Natasha: Oh, you want a short answer?

Nick: Oh, long answer is fine.

Natasha: So this is one thing that I looked at, sort of in this paper, but also in a paper that will hopefully be released in a few months here. So what does ikigai mean when we're translating it to a Western word or concept. And there is a paper by Frank Martela, it's called "The three meanings of meaning in life."

And in it, he talks about how meaning in life can really be translated in three ways. So even that concept doesn't have one one solid meaning. So we can think of it as purpose; your meaning as what motivates you to do something.

We can think of it as coherence; how do we actually make sense of the experiences that we've lived and kind of form a narrative around those that makes sense. Or we can think of it as significant; so what actually makes your life significant, worthwhile, worth living?

And it seems from our research that ikigai translates best to that meaning of meaning, so meaning and significance. So what makes your life significant or worthwhile. And that is an evaluative process.

So that actually takes somebody having an experience, so whether that is having these close relationships with family and friends, or helping somebody, or just doing kind of a fun activity, it takes them doing that activity, having that experience, and then making an evaluative judgment that's meaningful to them.

Nick: Fantastic. So you're really touching on, I think, Kamiya Mieko's definition as well. She noted that for people who lacked ikigai, in her research with lepers in the 1960s, that insignificance was this one thing that seemed to result in a lack of ikigai.

And that seemed very much tied to social world. So yeah, it's always interesting to ask my guests, how would you define ikigai. And I think you just did a wonderful job. So that's probably the best definition actually, because you brought in all these other contexts.

The Three Levels of Ikigai

Natasha highlights the relevance of the concept of ikigai in the study of human-robot interaction, shedding light on its the three levels of ikigai: personal, interpersonal, and community.

Unique shades of ikigai

Nick: I guess it leads to why did you choose this concept and word and not something else like, perhaps eudaimonia or flourishing or meaning in life or purpose in life?

Natasha: Yeah, so there are some unique shades to ikigai that I think do add value to our research. And there's some things that at least I hadn't seen in the Western well-being literature. One of them is this idea with ikigai that it has three different levels.

So you can experience sort of a personal sense of ikigai, and that would be the things related to yourself that bring you a sense of ikigai, so maybe your hobbies, for example.

A second person ikigai, which would be relations with close family and friends, and then this idea of having a third person ikigai, which is some sort of relation with the community, so that could be helping the community or being involved in kind of community activities.

And so that concept really lends itself well to the idea of expanding what technology should be doing when it's promoting well-being. So not just thinking of it as kind of a one dimensional aspect, thinking of multiple sources and multiple ways we can form this.

So I think that was really important. And it was really important for us to also try to relate the two concepts as well and then speak from both.

Nick: Now, that all making sense to me. As you know, in the West, we have this misconception it's like one sweet spot and it can only be one thing and it got to be almost like a dream job or something entrepreneurial. Whereas Ken Mogi describes ikigai as a spectrum.

I like this three levels, actually I hadn't seen these three levels before. So I've learned something and thought, yeah, this makes sense. It can be our hobbies, something personal, even something private, even for some Japanese, it's like a coping mechanism to get through their stressful lives.

And it could even be a vise, you know? Because it is subjective. It could be cigarettes. I remember when I asked a Japanese friend, what is ikigai, and this is a few years ago now when I was first learning about it, and he was thinking when he said, imagine two businessmen going into a bar after a hard day of work.

And one of them takes that first sip of beer, then he might say, ah, this is my ikigai. So yeah, that gives it some perspective.

Natasha: One little moment of reprieve from a hard day. Yeah.

Nick: So yeah, it's fascinating. It can be a hobby, maybe a vice, or this coping mechanism, but then on that deepest social level.

So I guess that second level is this interpersonal aspect, which often relate to intimacy: you can have intellectual intimacy or emotional intimacy, or perhaps artists, when they work with other artists, they have that creative intimacy.

And I think purpose would probably come into that community level, that sense of purpose, having a role. So I really like these three levels of ikigai that you noted in your paper.

Independence and Social Significance Among Older Adults

Natasha delineates three distinct categories of participants involved in her research on human-robot interaction: elder people who live alone, those living with others, and those in an aged-care facility.

Three types of participants

Nick: So we should touch on the findings of your surveys with these three types of participants: those living alone who choose to do so, those living with others, and then those living in perhaps something like a nursing home or aged-care facility.

Natasha: So related to ikigai, people who lived with others, either independently in a single-family homes, or in these care facilities, tended to have relations as their primary source of ikigai. So that was close relationships with family and friends, and also helping others in some capacity.

I think that that part is important to the idea of helping others because a lot of older adults begin to feel like a burden to others, especially when their health declines.

And if you're just having that goal to just increase social connection by having them do something with other people, it can be quite hard because they don't feel like they want to reach out because they're going to be a burden.

But if you shift that paradigm to having them actually help other people, then it's a bit more empowering, then they feel like I'm doing something for you, so I don't feel like as much of a burden.

But you're also getting that relational aspect in. And so those were people who lived with others or in care facilities, people who lived alone had more of either this idea that life is meaningful. So like, it's just inherent in living, or they talked about kind of the joy of every day.

So these everyday experiences. And I know lots of researchers have mentioned that having a cup of coffee, for instance, that can be your ikigai. It can just be like these joyful experiences you have throughout your day.

And so that we found is being more comprised of ikigai for people who lived alone. And in terms of social connection, they also tended to not have as deep of a social network, but also not need as deep of a social network.

And when I talk about depth, I guess I want to be very clear, emotional depth is important for everybody. So having somebody you can talk to about your sort of deepest concerns, that's important for everybody.

But having a wide social network is not. So that's another difference we found there. And for people who lived alone, compared to people who live with others, companionship, having companionship, and I'm, again, contrasting that with kind of it's more emotional depth, it's emotional relationship wasn't correlated with their ikigai.

Nick: So there seem to be almost two themes of independence and social significance.

Natasha: Yes, that's a great way to put it.

Nick: But yeah, it ties into or it shows how subjective and personal ikigai is. And some people want that independence, and they're happy and comfortable with themselves and others need connection. And maybe they're aware of, well, I need connection, but I don't want to be a burden.

And Japanese are very concerned about that, of being a burden. So you might have discovered that with your research in Japan. But also, if I feel needed, if I'm actually helping, then I'm happy with that, then I do feel ikigai. So it's complicated, it sounds quite complicated.

Designing an Ikigai Robot

Natasha delves into the complex aspects of designing an ikigai robot, exploring the nuanced factors that must be carefully considered.

Ikigai robot design

Nick: This all leads to potentially an ikigai robot. So let's talk about designing an ikigai robot. What needs to be considered in ikigai robot design?

Natasha: So one thing that we want to think about starting with is building rapport between the robot and the person; when you start to talk about these intimate topics such as ikigai, having a sense of general forge is going to ease that conversation.

So I think the opening how the robot is introduced, is really important. So that's one thing, and then it's really critical that the robot have information about the person. So it has some sort of model of how much ikigai that person has, and what brings that person ikigai.

And then when you're thinking about making suggestions to a particular person to do something, you can do it based on a model of what you know their likes are, what you know brings them joy, meaning, who they actually have in their lives.

So that sort of information is really important. So these have to be individualized to some extent. We've said this, there's no one source of ikigai for everybody, and there's no one ikigai model for everybody, when you think about using AI.

And then the robot also just needs to continually learn as well. So people's sources of ikigai do change over time, other aspects of their life change over time: the people in it, the community in which they're ingrained.

And so that also should become part of the model as well. And then we really think about this notion of people who already have high ikigai. So they already have high ikigai, they don't necessarily need to introduce something new into their lives, they just need to be maybe reminded to continually engage in these activities, especially during these life transitions.

So I think the point also, would you introduce these robots, if you're thinking about introducing them into the home is also really important. Because having them introduced before people make these big life changes can really help with that.

For people who actually don't have very much ikigai, having the robot suggest new things. So we can think about sources of ikigai, how the robot think about the three levels of ikigai that they have or may not have? So do they have kind of a community source of ikigai?

Do they have some way they feel like they're contributing? Do they have personal hobbies, which become even more important, as they age as these social roles start to shift and change?

And, you know, one thing that I looked at in research that will be hopefully published soon, is the fact that these social roles, satisfaction with your social roles actually tie less to ikigai, correlate less to ikigai than satisfaction with leisure, hobbies, and friendships.

So thinking about how those things change, so how do we actually promote hobbies? How do we actually promote personal interests as well? And how do we balance that, so people feel like they're also really not degrading or compromising their personal relationships in any way?

So yeah, another aspect is how then do we think about increasing sources of ikigai, or just increasing the feeling of ikigai? So it's not always necessary that people need new sources of ikigai. Just the appreciation or reflection on potential sources of ikigai they have in their life can potentially be enough to increase ikigai as well.

Nick: This is interesting. So these robots will most cue people to remember: "That's my ikigai source", or "why don't you ring your friend?" Or "why don't you play some music?" Or "why don't you exercise?" So these robots, we should highlight that they're learning robots, as well.

So they're going to learn to distinguish what are the appropriate sources of ikigai and then use that information to, I guess, remind the person they're looking after. And I actually saw a documentary quite a while ago, there was an old couple, and they didn't want the responsibility of a pet, I think.

So this idea, we'll talk about that, because it could be a concern. But yeah, they had this cute little robot with this cute voice. And every time it gave an answer, it would then confirm with, you know, a question like, "was that answer appropriate?"

So it's learning how to best serve this particular couple. So I'm sure that's the case with these robots or with ikigai robot, it'll be learning, so then it can best deliver, or best help whoever they're looking after.

Natasha: Right, yeah. So like you said, it is really important to learn about the individual, and having these suggestions confirmed by the individual. So having the robot actually suggest something.

And the person giving the robot direct feedback is a really kind of clear and easy way to then train any model on that: did I get this right?

Is that something you want to hear again? I think that also gives people more of a sense of autonomy as well, because they feel like they're a little bit more in control of the experience and the interaction.

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