HUFFINGTON
07.15.12
YOU. ROBOT
become commonplace in our
society, she suggested, the designers are going to have to
work that much harder than if
they just let these robots look
like robots. After all, we already
love cartoonish ones — R2D2,
C3P0, Wall-E, etc. — while but
we’re still scared of the human
ones — David in Prometheus or
the replicants in Blade Runner.
“Maybe we think they’re evil
because we have this built in
fear,” Saygin says. “But yet, humans have always been obsessed
with making them.”
It’s an important issue, Saygin adds, because humanoid
robots might be able to improve our lives in ways we
can’t quite comprehend yet. In
her field of cognitive science,
for example, robots with human qualities are being used
to help autistic children and
students with behavioral problems, to test their responses to
certain gestures and situations.
Bilge Mutlu, a professor and
leading specialist of human/
robot interactions in the educational field, is working on
creating “socially assistive robots” that help guide children
“toward long-term behavioral
goals.” The robots he’s working with would be customized
to the particular needs of each
child, developing and changing
with the child over time. He’s
testing how students’ attention
spans wane, and why, and how
robots can keep them focused.
“We’re not looking at it as robot vs. human anymore,” Mutlu
says. “It’s more about what can
we learn from human interaction, and then allow technology to offer those qualities. You
can have a human teacher, and
then you can have the robot at
home that will intensely and
specifically practice concepts,
languages, and so on.”
David Hanson is passionate
about the educational possibilities of robots, too, yet he
thinks they should be as real
as possible.
“The more realistic faces
are very useful with this social
training and for education and
grabbing people’s attention,” he
says. “There’s a demand and a
need for these realistic robots.”
Robots could identify faces for Alzheimer’s patients,
Bruce Duncan suggested —
“Who is that man walking up
to me now?” “That is your