Marco della Cava

USA TODAY

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Pepper the robot is coming to our shores later this year, and its creators want the help of Android developers to help make it smarter.

Japan-based SoftBank Robotics announced Wednesday at Google I/O, the company's annual developer's conference, that it is opening a new Pepper-focused outpost in San Francisco and unveiling an Android SDK, or software development kit, in the hopes of enticing programmers to write code for the robot.

"Pepper is ultimately an unfinished product, and we just wanted to incentivize developers to expand the ways in which people can engage with a humanoid robot," says Steve Carlin, vice president of SoftBank Robotics Americas, which has an existing office in Boston.

Asked if SoftBank will roll out at SDK for iOS developers, Carlin says he wouldn't rule anything out but "for the moment Android is the pervasive language."

Google I/O put a bright spotlight on the coming age of artificial intelligence, announcing a new product called Google Home (a rival to voice-activated Amazon Echo) as well as deep machine learning capabilities from the Google assistant summoned by the command, "OK, Google."

Tech leaders ranging from Google CEO Sundar Pichai to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have said recently that devices that we currently use will disappear from our hands, replaced by all-hearing and doing bots that are connected to Internet. That future raises questions about both privacy as well as what such companies plan to do with reams of details about users' daily habits and preferences.

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Pepper is a white hard-plastic robot with humanoid features such as large eyes and arms as well as a display screen for a chest. The robot is said to be able to read human emotions by processing visual and vocal inputs through its various microphones and cameras. Its purpose is to be "much more than a robot, he is a genuine humanoid companion created to communicate with you in the most natural and intuitive way," according to the company's website.

Technology increasingly is moving from a user-input model — where we type or tap our requests of computers— to one anchored to users interacting with artificially intelligent machines that leverage cloud computing power to interpret and even anticipate our voice commands or gestures. Amazon has had a big hit with Echo, a cylindrical device that can perform a range of tasks, from turning on music to ordering goods, by voice command.

Google I/O is putting a spotlight on this shift, with Google CEO Sundar Pichai noting, "we're at a seminal moment for AI."

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While Pepper is indeed a device, our interaction with it is meant to mimic the way humans relate to each other. Pepper already has been deployed commercially in Japan, where it is used to greet customers at 140 SoftBank Mobile stores as well as help take orders at fast food eateries and discuss car model details at dealerships.

Carlin says the first use cases in the U.S. are also likely to be commercial, specifically in the areas of retail and hospitality. He also sees the possibility of expanding into healthcare, where robots can help with tasks such as asking dementia patients a repetitive series of questions "without getting impatient or frustrated like a human naturally would."

SoftBank Robotics, which developed Pepper in conjunction with French company Aldebaran Robotics, expects to use its new offices near Silicon Valley to stay closely connected with tech companies whose evolving work with cloud computing and machine learning are integral to any robot's development.

Earlier this year, SoftBank announced partnerships with both Microsoft (to leverage its Azure cloud platform) and IBM (for a Watson supercomputer-focused SDK kit). Adding Google to the mix opens up Pepper to the programming skills of the globally pervasive Android platform.

Carlin says programmers working on Pepper-related tech will get access to "a best in class developer portal" that includes a developer forum, links to robotics workshops, access to SoftBank's engineering team and scientific details about Pepper.

"Humanoid robotics are very new," says Carlin. "Our goal is to demystify things as much as we can so we get a broader group to come on board and help program Pepper."

Follow USA TODAY tech reporter Marco della Cava on Twitter @marcodellacava