Panel on
Engagement,
Trust and Intimacy:
Are these the essential elements for a
‘successful’ interaction between a human and a robot?
March 26, 2008
As the capability of robots increases, and interactions
between humans and machines become more complex, it is important for
researchers to consider the potential for an emotional connection to be established
between a human and a machine. The panel
will discuss areas such as the development of engagement, trust and intimacy
during human interaction with embodied robotic
characters, and assigning ‘personalities’ and ‘emotional states’
to robotic characters that interact with people in public spaces.
The panel will focus specifically on questions such as:
• What is trust, and can you share it with a machine?
• What is intimacy, and can you share it with a machine?
• How do theories of behaviour from different perspectives assist in understanding
our complex relationships with robotic ‘others’?
Panellists
There is
currently wide interdisciplinary interest in the simulation, representation
and integration of emotional characteristics
within machines. The three panellists selected will engage researchers and practitioners
from the fields of artificial intelligence,
robotics and cognitive science.
Lola Cañamero is Reader in Adaptive Systems in the School of Computer
Science at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK,
where she has worked since 2001. She received a BA and MA in Philosophy from
the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain,
and a PhD in Computer Science (1995) from the University of Paris-XI in France.
Before her current position, she worked as a
postdoctoral associate with Rodney Brooks at the MIT AI-Lab in the US, and with
Luc Steels at the VUB AI-Lab in Belgium, and
as a senior researcher at the Spanish Scientific Research Council, IIIA-CSIC.
Her research lies in the areas of modelling emotions
and their expression in autonomous and social agents (both robotic and synthetic),
adaptive behaviour, and human-robot interaction.
She investigates these issues taking a biologically-inspired approach and from
different perspectives: ethological, developmental,
and evolutionary. She has authored or co-authored over 70 scientific papers
in journals, refereed conferences and books.
Dr Cañamero edited, with others, Socially Intelligent Agents: Creating
Relationships with Computers and Robots (Kluwer 2002),
and the special issue ‘Achieving human-like qualities in interactive virtual
and physical humanoids’ of I. J. of Humanoid Robotics (2006).
Since January 2004 she has coordinated the thematic area ‘Emotion in Cognition
and Action’ of the EU-funded HUMAINE
Network of Excellence on emotions in human-machine interaction, and since December
2006 she has lead the EU-funded
Advanced Robotics project ‘Feelix Growing’ which investigates socio-emotional
development from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Karl F.
MacDorman is Associate Professor of Informatics at Indiana University in the
Human-Computer Interaction program.
Dr MacDorman received his BA in computer science from University of California,
Berkeley in 1988 and his PhD in machine learning
and robotics from Cambridge University in 1996. Most recently MacDorman was
an associate professor at Osaka University,
Japan (2003-2005). Previously, he was assistant professor in the Department
of Systems and Human Science at the same institution
(1997-2000), and a supervisor (1991-1997) and research fellow (1997-1998) at
Cambridge University. Dr MacDorman has also worked
as a software engineer at Sun Microsystems and as chief technology officer for
two venture companies. His research focuses on
human-robot interaction and the symbol grounding problem. He co-organized the
workshop ‘Toward Social Mechanisms of
Android Science’ at CogSci 2005 and CogSci/ICCS 2006, the workshop ‘Views
of the Uncanny Valley’ at IEEE Humanoids 2005,
and the special session ‘Psychological Benchmarks of Human-Robot Interaction’
at IEEE Ro-Man 2006 and has edited special issues
on these topics for Connection Science and Interaction Studies. He has published
extensively in robotics, machine learning, and
cognitive science.
Nishio Shuichi
Nishio Shuichi received the MSc degree in computer science from Kyoto University
(1994) and joined Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone Corporation (NTT) in 1994. He engaged in research on human emotion
and in the development of commercial
high-speed IPv6 networks, VoIP and multimedia applications (NTT-West). In 2005
Mr Nishio joined ATR Intelligent Robotics
and Communication Laboratories in Kyoto, and is now working on robotic sensor
networks, android science, and
standardization
of robotic technology. He is a Member of IEEE, IEICE and JSRE.
Panel Format
TBA
Panel Organizers
The panel is organised by Mari Velonaki, David Rye and Steve Scheding, all from
the Centre for Social
Robotics
within the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, University of Sydney, Australia.
Mari Velonaki
Mari Velonaki is an artist who has been working in the field of interactive
installation art since 1995. Her practice
engages thespectator/participant with digital and robotic ‘characters’
in interplays stimulated by sensory triggered
interfaces (speech 1995, touch 1997, breath 1998, electrostatic charge 2000,
vision system 2000, light 2003,
robotics 2003-06). Her innovative human-machine interfaces promote intimate
and immersive relationships between
participants and interactive artworks. Mari’s installations have been
exhibited worldwide. Her exhibitions include:
Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh; Millennium
Museum – Beijing,
Biennale of Electronic Arts; Ars Electronica, Linz; Biennale of Electronic Arts,
Perth; Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art;
Conde Duque Museum, Madrid; European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck; Te Papa
TongarewaMuseum of New Zealand;
Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; Arco, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art,
Sydney. Mari was awarded a PhD in
Media Arts from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in 2003.
In the same year, she received an
Australian Research Council Linkage grant, 2003-2006, for the major interdisciplinary
project ‘Fish-Bird’ in
collaboration with robotic scientists Drs Rye, Scheding and Williams at the
Australian Centre for Field Robotics. In 2007
she was awarded a Fellowship by the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council
for the Arts.
David Rye
David Rye works in embedded and applied robot control, and in the design and
implementation of computer-controlled systems.
From a background is in mechanical engineering (BE University of Adelaide 1981;
PhD University of Sydney 1986), he now works
principally on robotics, electronics, software and systems design. David was
a co-founder of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics
in 1999 and of the Centre for Social Robotics, with Mari Velonaki, in 2005.
Dr Rye’s research has been applied industrially to areas
such as the reduction of load sway in shipboard and container handling and the
system design of autonomous container-handling and
tracked vehicles. Since 2003 David has become increasingly interested in human-robot
interaction, particularly in environments that
involve the general public, and in a media art context. David is also internationally
recognised as a pioneer in the introduction and
development of university teaching in mechatronics, having founded the first
Australian degree in mechatronic engineering in 1990.
Steve Scheding
Steve Scheding’s research concentrates on the acquisition, representation,
interpretation and visualisation of three-dimensional
environmental data. He has used disparate sensors, such as laser, radar, cameras
and multi-spectral sensors for capturing data
from outdoor terrains. The data include information such as range, reflectivity
etc., as well as terrain properties such as colour and
plant health. Steve’s innovative software enables the acquisition-representation-visualisation
pipeline to operate in real-time.
Steve has a BE and PhD (1998), both in Mechatronics from The University of Sydney.
Apart from his work in representation and
visualisation, Steve has conducted extensive R&D work on the automation
of land vehicles and has made major contributions to
architectures and implementations of reliable software for robotic applications
in unstructured environments involving the
general public.