Rise of the (giggling, dancing, punning) robots

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Robots were once science fiction: in fact, the word comes from the Czech word “robota,” meaning work, and originated in Karel Capek’s popular 1920 science-fiction play R.U.R. (for Rossum’s Universal Robots).

These days, there are robot vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers and dogs, and all kinds of robots that work on assembly lines and in other industrial capacities.

But let’s face it, we all know that a real robot is one that resembles a human being: what science fiction writers call an android (as in Philip K. Dick’s story “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, which became the movie Blade Runner).

The trouble is, current humanoid robots either freak us out or, after a while, simply bore us. Which is why researchers are hard at work trying to improve robot-human interaction.

Maybe if they danced…? Earlier this year researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the National Institute of Communications Technology in Kyoto showed off a squishy yellow robot (rather like a rubber ducky) called “Keepon” that can pick out the beat in a piece of music and move along. Not only that: if you’re dancing in front of it, it can track your rhythmic motion and move in time with you, becoming, in effect, a squishy yellow dance partner (which just might be an improvement on your usual dance partner).

Psychologists have shown that people are more engaging when their movement is synchronized to their voice, or to the voice or movement of another person. “In the future you are going to be talking to some robot and just the ability of the robot to nod to what you are saying will make it easier to interact,” says Marek Michalowski, one of the leaders of the research.

Or maybe what robots really need is a sense of humour. Julia Taylor and Lawrence Mazlack at the University of Cincinnati built a computer program that is able to “get” puns. (Either the lowest or the noblest form of wit, depending on your personal preference.)

They gave the program a database of words, along with examples of how words can be related to one another in different ways to create different meanings. When the program is given a new bit of text, it uses its knowledge to work out how the words relate to each other and what they mean. If it finds one that doesn’t seem to fit, it looks for similar-sounding words. If one of those words seemed to fit better, it flags the passage as a joke.

The researchers hope that this rather laborious process (although, since it happens in a computer, it appears almost instantaneous) may someday help make robots used as companions or helpers seem friendlier and more human.

Of course, people in the future may get along better with robots simply because they’re going to grow up with them.

Robots could find more use in classrooms, for example, thanks to work like that just carried out by Javier Movellan at the University of California San Diego.

Movellan’s team put a 60 cm-tall robot called QRIO (pronounced “curio”) into a classroom with a dozen toddlers between 18 months and two years old. (Video here.) QRIO would stay in the middle of the room, using its sensors to avoid bumping into kids or the walls. It would giggle when the kids touched its head, occasionally sit down, and lie down when its batteries died. Via remote control, a human operator could also make it turn its gaze toward a child, or wave as one went away.

Over several weeks, the toddlers began interacting with QRIO pretty much the same way they did with other toddlers—and with much more care and attention than they gave to a similar-looking but inanimate robot called Robby, who got hugged less frequently and suffered more aggressive treatment. The toddlers would help QRIO up when it fell, and when its batteries died and it lay down, they’d cover it with a blanket and say “night, night.” (Awwww….)

Robots that can pass as humans are still a long way off…but maybe not as far as you think.

Whether you think that’s a good idea may depend on how much you took Terminator to heart.

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UPDATE: David Buckley writes in comments:

In 2002 I created three ‘Cycler’ robots for Waste Watch, a charity, which goes into schools and talks about recycling. In actuality it is the Cycler robots which deliver the message whilst their handlers just act as stooges. The Cyclers are controlled by a hidden handset but they are also robots acting on messages rather than just simple radio-controlled devices and if the message gets corrupted by interference they don’t do it and if the transmitter is turned off they shut down and go to sleep until it turned back on. They talk by playing MP3 files and look alive by running a personality program so the handler doesn’t have to be continually ‘driving’ them.

There are three Cycler robots and each robot does two 45 minute presentations each day, five days a week, 30 weeks of the year, and so far each Cycler has been seen by about 250,000 children. All I think under ten years old.

This almost certainly makes the Waste Watch people the world experts on how children relate to robots and this had never occurred to me before reading your article. All of the children are spellbound by Cycler and listen intently while he is talking, it is unbelievable to watch, One minute they are chatting away while the teachers introduce Waste Watch and the next minute when Cycler starts to talk you could hear a pin drop and all eyes are riveted on Cycler. There is of course the occasional very young child who needs to be taken out of the room, maybe six a year per Cycler which works out at around 1 in 10,000. Although Waste Watch’s presentation is for younger children I have even seen teenagers who knew how Cycler worked to go up to it as they were leaving and say “goodbye Cycler”.

David Buckley’s web page about Cycler.
Video of Cycler.

Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2007/11/rise-of-the-giggling-dancing-punning-robots/

3 comments

    • Edward Willett on November 7, 2007 at 6:08 am
    • Reply

    David,

    Cool stuff! Maybe you should get in touch with the QURIO researchers and talk to them about your experiences with Cycler…

    When I post the column to my main website (www.edwardwillett.com) tomorrow, I’m going to add a link to the Cycler site.

    Thanks for stopping by!

    • david buckley on November 7, 2007 at 1:54 am
    • Reply

    http://www.davidbuckley.net/FR/
    Cycler/CyclerPresentationRobot.htm

    No-wordwrap strikes again! Here is the full URL.
    David

    • David Buckley on November 7, 2007 at 1:49 am
    • Reply

    I was interested to read your article through Futerismic

    In 2002 I created three ‘Cycler’ robots for Waste Watch, a charity, which goes into schools and talks about recycling. In actuality it is the Cycler robots which deliver the message whilst their handlers just act as stooges. The Cyclers are controlled by a hidden handset but they are also robots acting on messages rather than just simple radio-controlled devices and if the message gets corrupted by interference they don’t do it and if the transmitter is turned off they shut down and go to sleep until it turned back on. They talk by playing MP3 files and look alive by running a personality program so the handler doesn’t have to be continually ‘driving’ them.
    There are three Cycler robots and each robot does two 45 minute presentations each day, five days a week, 30 weeks of the year, and so far each Cycler has been seen by about 250,000 children. All I think under ten years old.
    This almost certainly makes the Waste Watch people the world experts on how children relate to robots and this had never occurred to me before reading your article. All of the children are spellbound by Cycler and listen intently while he is talking, it is unbelievable to watch, One minute they are chatting away while the teachers introduce Waste Watch and the next minute when Cycler starts to talk you could hear a pin drop and all eyes are riveted on Cycler. There is of course the occasional very young child who needs to be taken out of the room, maybe six a year per Cycler which works out at around 1 in 10,000. Although Waste Watch’s presentation is for younger children I have even seen teenagers who knew how Cycler worked to go up to it as they were leaving and say “goodbye Cycler”.
    http://www.davidbuckley.net/FR/Cycler/CyclerPresentationRobot.htm
    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rdz0cVJLeJ4

    David Buckley

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