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　　Many robot engineers/find dependence on humans to be a defect.// They want to make weak robots stronger,/which is to say,/more independent of people.//
　　However,/the little episode above suggests/that weak robots might help create a positive relationship/between robots and humans.// In fact,/Okada Michio,/a professor at Toyohashi University of Technology,/sees weakness as a virtue.// He is working on robots/which are designed not  to work without human interaction.//
　　Take a wastebasket called Sociable  Trash Box  (STB),/for example.// Its job is to see that trash gets picked up.// This weak robot approaches the trash/and circles around it helplessly,/waiting for someone’s assistance.// When people come along/and see the robot moving its body/as if asking for help,/they usually pick up the trash/and place it in the basket.// STB bows,/as if to say,/“Thanks!”//
　　In the conventional way of thinking,/a room cleaner that gets tangled up in a cord,/or a machine that cannot pick up the trash by itself,/is weak or maybe defective.// But from Okada’s point of view,/this weakness draws out our cooperative spirit.// Far from being dehumanizing,/working with a robot like STB/can make us more human.//