Interesting things about robots (part 1)

When invited by a robot, most people feel uncomfortable when it comes from behind. If he brought the cup of tea right in front of you, you would feel threatened, though the robot might be just 1.4 meters tall.

They vacuum the apartment themselves, look after the children of the people and have begun to take care, at least in Japan, for the elderly and patients. Researchers are confident that robots will make social and social changes and be prepared to accept them.

In the past, when building robots, engineers were only interested in technical details, the combination of engines and sensors. But now there are many more remarkable things. These artificial residents will need to learn both behavior and personality.

"When people have been exposed to robots for many years, its social ability plays a huge role in accepting them," said Kerstin Dautenhahn, who studies the coexistence between humans and robots at Dai. Study Hertfordshire, England, said.

For example, a robot that serves coffee every morning with a constant sentence will "quickly cause unpleasant frustration". But how does a robot have to look and act to stop that frustration?

In mid-April, a European-wide research project began under the leadership of Queen Mary University in London to answer this question. They have 8 million euros to develop a robot plan for the next 4 years. It must not only have a sensitive response to the user, but must also recognize the intention of the person and master many ways of dialogue.

The project leader, Peter McOwan, said: "The question is: What characteristics do an artificial companion have to have in order for people to trust it?"

PLEO robot, 2007. Very curious, like to be caressed and fed, explore the world around yourself.(Photo: geekalerts.com)

"It's like visiting a friend"

An apartment located right next to the University of Hertfordshire, 30km north of London. On the table is a plate of cookies, books neatly placed on the shelves, a robot carrying tea to serve guests. Here, away from the dry atmosphere of a laboratory, Ms. Kerstin Dautenhahn studied how people treat social machines. Only 2 robots live permanently in the ground floor apartment, the participants only visit, "like they first went to a friend's house" .

And the circumstances that Dautenhahn observed are the same as in everyday life. For example, how do robots invite tea? In a discreet or prior way, opposite or from the side? "The majority of the participants had an uncomfortable feeling when the robot was operating behind their backs , " the biologist said. "They want to always see it." The cup of tea should not be brought directly from the front: People feel like being threatened - while standing or sitting as well and not dependent on robots only 1.4 meters tall in appearance how. The majority of the experiment participants liked it most when the robot approached them from the side to the side.

Continuing to surprise is the distance between people and machines. A large part of the participants felt normal when robots came close to them and almost touched them - the distance was usually only for relatives. Dautenhahn deduced that the participants did not see the robot as a human being, but a machine - and the minimum distance between people and people in society was no longer valid for it.

"We have learned that psychological models of interaction between people and people cannot be brought to communicate with robots simply," Dautenhahn said.

Newborn robot with smart brain

ICub, 2006, knows crawling like children, grabs objects and hears what is happening around.(Photo: RobotCub)

Historians have long thought that just installing a robot with appropriate sensors and programming for all possible situations is that it will be able to interact perfectly with the world around them. But the world is too complicated. Now psychologists and educators . start to move on and follow a different solution: A social robot must spy on the world around as a baby. It must look, embrace and interact with others to learn how to treat society well.

Newborn robot named ICub is an experiment of 10 research institutes in Europe. A baby with an artificial breast can crawl or sit up. It can be with grasping things. With his big head he looked and listened to what was around. Thereby the child can understand the reactions of others and take appropriate actions. Especially his parents have programmed it with a basic characteristic: ICub is very curious.

"Understanding cannot be sown from outside," explained Kerstin Dautenhahn. "Things like intelligence can only form when an entity impacts the world around."

This is important because future robots are more and more in contact with the elderly, with children and with people who are not technically proficient but do not want to read a full manual.

"ICub will help us a lot in developing companion robots in society", Dautenhahn hopes.

"The child" knows what others want

Leonardo is the youngest "child" and is by far the most expensive child of Cynthia Breazeal, the head of robotics research at the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Thanks to Leonardo, the researcher wants to explore the role of emotion in the relationship between humans and robots. "Ideally, the social robot expresses its state of mind through its appearance and facial expressions so people can quickly prepare , " said Breazeal.

With large ears, oversized eyes and hairy belly, Leonardo reminds people of the images in the movie "Gremlins". But its brain is not completely cinematic. It has amazing abilities: recognize the world around it with many cameras. When it recognizes a face, its eyes and head will follow the movement - the machine wants to look into the eyes. At the same time, many microphones analyze the surrounding noises, high voices and exaggeration of voices. Leonardo adjusted its reaction through the analysis. At the same time it also tries to recognize how people react to its face, to learn for the future.

It is no stranger to crying, mistakes or double-reaction. Such personalities attract attention and create a relationship. Leo can also "read" the thoughts of others: A basic thing in human coexistence is being able to put yourself in the position of a loved one.

Psychologists call this ability "Theory of Mind". In a classic experiment that children under 3 often fail, a researcher hides Leonardo (and another scientist) in front of a bag of potato chips and a bag of biscuits in two boxes. After the colleague left the room, the researcher swapped two bags. If the scientist went into the room again and opened the box previously containing potato chips, but now biscuits, Leonardo knew what he wanted - he gave him a bag of potato chips.

"Many things come from psychology"

"A lot of the things we teach to robots come from psychology," Breazeal said.

And when the robot can turn to look at a certain purpose, make a gesture or wince, all machine-human boundaries are removed. "For such robots, we have the reaction as if it were emotionally able," said sociologist Sherry Turkle, who studied the strange relationship between humans and machines for 10 years at MIT . "Evolution has created us like that." Consequences: People feel instinctive to care for robots - especially when robots make people feel they are needed.

(There's more)

Phan Ba ​​(according to Süddeutsche Zeitung)