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What would a lethargic robot look like? To think about this, we first have to see what lethargy in people means. According to the Cambridge dictionary:
“the feeling of having little energy or of being unable or unwilling to do anything”.
The unable or unwilling in this definition is important. On the one hand a human can be lethargic because they didn’t have enough sleep and therefore function worse or slower, on the other hand a person can be lethargic because they’re in the wrong state of mind, e.g. they’re feeling depressed. Lethargy can therefore also be seen as an emotional state. What makes lethargy and robots interesting is that we often times view robots as machines with unending amounts of energy. This juxtaposition between man and machine can be explored by emulating the very human condition of lethargy in robots.
Tired bots
Let’s start by looking at tired robots. What could that look like? When searching for images of tired robots almost all of them are depicted with a hanging head and hanging limbs. Interestingly enough, when looking at the most famous depressed robot, Marvin from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", this robot is also pictured with a hanging head. And while the images don't portray any movement, Marvin can be said to move with a type of tiredness in his limbs.
Tired bots
Let’s start by looking at tired robots. What could that look like? When searching for images of tired robots almost all of them are depicted with a hanging head and hanging limbs. Interestingly enough, when looking at the most famous depressed robot, Marvin from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", this robot is also pictured with a hanging head. And while the images don't portray any movement, Marvin can be said to move with a type of tiredness in his limbs.
Real life robots
Real life robots
As interesting as the previous examples are, they are all fictional robots. Are there forms of lethargy to be seen in real life robots? I couldn't find a bot specifically made to be tired ore lethargic but there do seem to be bots out there that respond to human fatigue and tiredness. Another thing that has to be noted is how some of the best robots in the world (as rated by them winning DARPA challenges), are very sloooooow. Take this video of the 2015 winner of the DARPA robotic challenge. It needed 45 minutes to finish all tasks, something that could be done by a human in a couple of minutes. While some movements are swift, others are painfully slow and could be said to look like the robot is extremely careful or indeed, lethargic.
Soft robots
Soft robots
Another subset of real life robots are soft robots. These are robots inspired by nature that make use a soft and flexible materials. Take a look at this crawling soft robot from Harvard. It slowly crawles over the floor in a way that makes it seem like the robot struggles to get from point a to b. It almost looks like the movements are made by a depressed struggling bot, using it's last energy to get somewhere. Or you know, lethargic.
(The lethargic bot would most likely not be thrown around like this, but this artwork does channel lethargy)
Lethargic bots
Lethargic bots
So, to go back to the first question, I think a lethargic robot would have a mixture of the above features. It would be slow in its movements, hang its limbs in so far it would have those and it would struggle with it's tasks. The hanging of the limbs could be like something that is seen in Jordan Wolfson's artwork MANIC/LOVE . The bot would maybe also just give up sometimes. If everything becomes too much, if it's all too tiring to deal with, why not just stop? It might look something like the falling robots in the DARPA challenge, who mid task just seem to stop and fall over.
(When watching this without sound, the robots almost seem to just give up)
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