Equipping people with extra robotic arms could certainly help them with certain tasks, but what role would those arms play in social interactions? The wild-looking Jizai Arms are designed for just that problem.
Created by a team of scientists at the University of Tokyo, the Jizai Arms take their name from the traditional Japanese “Jizai Okimono” articulated animal statues. Jizai is pronounced “jee-zye” and roughly translates to “freely”…or in this case, more like “to move freely”.
At the bottom of the experimental setup is a backpack with six built-in outlets. Different types of system-specific articulated robotic arms can be plugged into one or more of these sockets and then controlled in real time by the wearer or others. The arms are designed to be aesthetically appealing and “in harmony with the human body”.
Kazuaki Koyama / Jizai Arms
We are still awaiting a response from the researchers on the exact method of controlling the Jizai Arms, although the Analyzing Vidya The website notes that the wireless remote used actually looks like a miniature version of the arm. The report also claims the wearable will tip the scales at 14 kg (31 lb) with four arms attached.
In the study, a group of volunteers wore the Jizai Arms system while physically interacting through various role-playing social scenarios. Participants are encouraged to exchange weapons with each other as they see fit, and to give or receive them as gifts.They can also control their arms and Those of other volunteers.
“During our role-playing sessions, we found that our bodies can precisely sense arm attachment/detachment, and we felt a strong shock especially when detaching or reducing the number of robotic arms worn,” the scientists wrote in a paper papers in this field. study. “We also propose adding customizability to the robotic arm to generate a sense of social ownership, that is, an individual’s sense of ownership of a particular artificial body part shared by multiple people, as a future research topic.”
The paper was recently published in the journal Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. You can see the Jizai Arms in action in the video below.
Free limbs | JIZAI ARMS: SOCIAL DIGITAL CYBORGS
source: Jizai Arms
