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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."
Robots with social skills? Dear God, they've surpassed 80% of the population of /.!
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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!
While I'm sure this robot will be impressive in some respects, I really wish people would go ahead and segment the AI field out into two separate fields - "Cognitive Modeling" and "Cognitive Imitation". These types of robots which simulate high-level human behaviour that we realistically just don't understand how it works are essentially parlor tricks. They're entertaining, but do they really tell us more about how the brain works? I don't think so - they mostly push the envelope in the field of pattern recognition and imitation.
In other words, when it comes to "AI", these things tend to be really heavy on the "A" and really light on the "I".
Course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
This has been done before. Back in 1999, five robots had to make their way around the American Assocation for Artifical Intelligence annual meeting in Orlando.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
...before the organization is renamed "The American Association of Artificial Intelligences"?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
That's all he said, but I've been thinking about it ever since. Would I want to get in an elevator with a huge, industrial looking faceless machine? Okay, yes I would, but would my mom? No. What about a robot that has a face, but that stares grimly straight ahead? Or one that continually tries to make eye contact? Wouldn't those all seem creepy inside an elevator?
The fact is, human behavior is highly context specific, and we feel uncomfortable and /or threatened when "people" around us behave improperly. Don't believe me? Try peeking over a bathroom stall sometime. That's why we need a socially aware robot.
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
do they really tell us more about how the brain works? I don't think so - they mostly push the envelope in the field of pattern recognition and imitation.
So pattern recognition and imitation are not considered a part of intelligence now?
Wow. I better call my friends at every elementary school on the planet and tell them to radically change their teaching style.
The Register had a good article on pronoun usage.
In English the masculine is used in gender-neutral cases where the gender cannot be specified before hand ("The officer should have his standard equipment present").
The feminine is used in cases of abstract personification ("The United States has her hands full") of a concept or an object (Freedom or automobiles).
Much like a car, to give it "personality" would move it from the first case to the second. Thus when you give a generic machine a specific voice, it is (usually) female).
But, as with all usage, it is up to the user. There is a strong push for gender neutral language in most things. The problem is that in cases that are purely up to personal taste, these rules apply.
So you can't tell someone to not make their robot feminine. But you can tell someone to make their manual not masculine.
And you seem to think their purpose was purely political (ie that there was a certain quota that needed to be maintained so they added a female robot to offset the male engineers). I really think it is much simplier than that.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Recognizing human emotional states and predicting their responses from facial expressions and actions is one of the things humans do best ...<snip>... rather than having them try to do things we're GOOD at.
Bwuahahahahahahahahaa!!!!!
Sorry.. but if we're so good at recognizing emotions and predicting responses from facial expressions, then why are there so many divorces? That alone is proof that we SUCK at recognizing each other's needs..
On that note, maybe I'll start work on AICounselor_v1.0Beta.tar.gz now.. I'm sure GRACE would enjoy that module.
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With all things being equal.. well, no, that's boring..
Actually, that is planned for the future. We currently have the ability to locate the AAAI badges that are given to all conference attendees and use OCR to extract the name of the person we're talking to (Swarthmore did that portion of the work). Next year, we'd like to try to schmooze with conference attendees about their current research by pulling down their current papers, c.v.'s, etc. off the web. In time, in time. :)
- 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.