Social Robot?

smashr writes "Researchers are currently putting the finishing touches on robots that will be attending the AAAI (American Association for Artificial Intelligence) conference this year as part of the AAAI robot challenge. In addition to robots wearing tuxedos and serving drinks, several robots designed to actually register themselves will be participating in the conference. One such robot is GRACE, being built by Carnegie Mellon University and the Naval Research Lab (among others). GRACE features a digital face and speech recognition to interact with people attending the conference. (She even runs Linux!) Her goal is to register for the conference, give a speech and answer questions. Stories at: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, CNN.com, and USA Today."

Comments

*blush*

[Zaphod B]

Gosh, I wonder what else lonely geeks will be developing robots for!

Re:*blush*

[fobbman]

Betcha next years /. "meatings" will be better attended by robots than this years organic model attendance.

Ro-bot

[Skyshadow]

Robots with social skills? Dear God, they've surpassed 80% of the population of /.!

A paradox

[Tall Rob Mc]

Its an interesting paradox that the nerdiest of computer geeks are programming robots to interact socially...

These people are the most qualified and least qualified at the same time!

Re:A paradox

[fobbman]

People have been getting robots to do what is too unsafe for humans to do for a long time. Studying the insides of volcanos, defusing bombs, roaming the surface of Mars, and interacting with others in public all hold the same level of danger to geeks.

The creator are sexists

[Anonymous Coward]

How can they imply a machine as female when it does not even reproduce? Not only that, they have no sexual organs, nor sex chromosome! Most ironic part is, all the photo has shown MEN constructing the machines!!! If they really want to respect the other gender, they should have put female engineers at work instead of making a poor excuse of 'female robot'.

Re:The creator are sexists

[Anonymous Coward]

Bahahaha. You had me up to "female engineers". Yeah, honey, "engineer" me a beer out of the fridge. Thanks.

Re:Robots in tuxes

[teamhasnoi]

You should rent 'Ice Pirates'. Plenty in there.

How Long...

[John Hasler]

...before the organization is renamed "The American Association of Artificial Intelligences"?

Re:I don't think so...

[John Hasler]

My wife runs Linux (on her computer, I mean).

Re:Knowing your limitations

[moronga]

"solicited drama students to teach GRACE how to act like a human so it will make people feel comfortable"

You have to give the builders points for knowing their limitations.

I went to CMU and the drama students are the *last* people I'd go to if I wanted to teach a robot to act "human."

:)

What will this be like in 2050?

[guttentag]

Her goal is to register for the conference, give a speech and answer questions.

I realize these are not easy tasks, but I have to wonder what challenging goals will be like in the future. Will we be reading an article on Slashdot.NET in 2050 that talks about a robot's goals at the conference including:

• Driving itself to the conference in an inconspicuous, beat-up old 2040-model car?
• Spilling its drink on an attractive woman's shirt and taking first-person-perspective photos of the cleanup efforts?
• Fooling the attendees into believing it is a real person?
• Fooling the other robots posing as attendees into believing it is a real person?
• Fooling the attendees into believing they are real people?

By those standards, registering oneself for the conference, giving a speech and answering questions seems easy.

Re:Her goal?

[iapetus]

"What is your goal?"
"Why does it make you feel that way that What is my goal?"