Nathan G. Freier

Robovie, You'll Have to Go into the Closet Now: Children's Social and Moral Relationships With a Humanoid Robot

Children will increasingly come of age with personified robots and potentially form social and even moral relationships with them. What will such relationships look like? To address this question, 90 children (9-, 12-, and 15-year-olds) initially interacted with a humanoid robot, Robovie, in 15-min sessions. Each session ended when an experimenter interrupted Robovies turn at a game and, against Robovies stated objections, put Robovie into a closet. Each child was then engaged in a 50-min structural-developmental interview. Results showed that during the interaction sessions, all of the children engaged in physical and verbal social behaviors with Robovie. The interview data showed that the majority of children believed that Robovie had mental states (e.g., was intelligent and had feelings) and was a social being (e.g., could be a friend, offer comfort, and be trusted with secrets). In terms of Robovies moral standing, children believed that Robovie deserved fair treatment and should not be harmed psychologically but did not believe that Robovie was entitled to its own liberty (Robovie could be bought and sold) or civil rights (in terms of voting rights and deserving compensation for work performed). Developmentally, while more than half the 15-year-olds conceptualized Robovie as a mental, social, and partly moral other, they did so to a lesser degree than the 9- and 12-year-olds. Discussion focuses on how (a) childrens social and moral relationships with future personified robots may well be substantial and meaningful and (b) personified robots of the future may emerge as a unique ontological category.

Design patterns for sociality in human-robot interaction

We propose that Christopher Alexanders idea of design patterns can benefit the emerging field of HRI. We first discuss four features of design patterns that appear particularly useful. For example, a pattern should be specified abstractly enough such that many different instantiations of the pattern can be uniquely realized in the solution to specific problems in context. Then, after describing our method for generating patterns, we offer and describe eight possible design patterns for sociality in human robot interaction: initial introduction, didactic communication, in motion together, personal interests and history, recovering from mistakes, reciprocal turn-taking in game context, physical intimacy, and claiming unfair treatment or wrongful harms. We also discuss the issue of validation of design patterns. If a design pattern program proves successful, it will provide HRI researchers with basic knowledge about human robot interaction, and save time through the reuse of patterns to achieve high levels of sociality.

Do people hold a humanoid robot morally accountable for the harm it causes

Robots will increasingly take on roles in our social lives where they can cause humans harm. When robots do so, will people hold robots morally accountable? To investigate this question, 40 undergraduate students individually engaged in a 15-minute interaction with ATRs humanoid robot, Robovie. The interaction culminated in a situation where Robovie incorrectly assessed the participants performance in a game, and prevented the participant from winning a

Office window of the future?: two case studies of an augmented window

20 prize. Each participant was then interviewed in a 50-minute session. Results showed that all of the participants engaged socially with Robovie, and many of them conceptualized Robovie as having mental/emotional and social attributes. Sixty-five percent of the participants attributed some level of moral accountability to Robovie. Statistically, participants held Robovie less accountable than they would a human, but more accountable than they would a vending machine. Results are discussed in terms of the New Ontological Category Hypothesis and robotic warfare.

Children attribute moral standing to a personified agent

METHOD We mounted an HDTV camera on top of a university building that over-looked a beautiful public plaza and fountain area on the campus and displayed the real-time image on 50” plasma displays in the participants’ interior, windowless offices. (See Figure 1). In these case studies, data was collected over a 17week period: 6 weeks with the interior office “as is”, 6 weeks with the plasma display, and 4 weeks following the removal of the plasma display. Across the 17 week period, each participant completed (a) 7 30–45 minute interviews, (b) 10 work satisfaction surveys, (c) 10 mood surveys, (d) 10 office perception surveys, (e) journal entries, and (f) responses to email queries. In this poster we report on the themes that emerged in two of the case studies: Nina, a 45-50 year-old, female Lecturer; and Daniel, a 30-35 year-old, male staff member.

The distant gardener: what conversations in the Telegarden reveal about human-telerobotic interaction

This paper describes the results of a study conducted to answer two questions: (1) Do children generalize their understanding of distinctions between conventional and moral violations in human-human interactions to human-agent interactions? and (2) Does the agents ability to make claims to its own moral standing influence childrens judgments? A two condition, between- and within-subjects study was conducted in which 60 eight and nine year-old children interacted with a personified agent and observed a researcher interacting with the same agent. A semi-structured interview was conducted to investigate the childrens judgments and reasoning about the observed interactions as well as hypothetical human-human interactions. Results suggest that children do distinguish between conventional and moral violations in human-agent interactions and that the ability of the agent to express harm and make claims to its own rights significantly increases childrens likelihood of identifying an act against the agent as a moral violation.

IR-Toolbox: an experiential learning tool for teaching IR

We investigated human interaction with a specific telerobotic installation: The Telegarden, a community garden that allows users to plant and tend seeds in a remote garden by controlling a robotic arm through a Web-based interface. Based on an analysis of 3 months of associated online chat (347 participants, 16,504 postings), results showed the following: (t) conversations focused on nature (13%), technology (22%), and human relationships (69%); (2) patterns of conversation appeared to follow patterns of physical activity in the telegarden; (3) as individual participation in the chat room increased, conversation decreased about nature and technology within the Telegarden and increased about nature and technology beyond the Telegarden; and (4) users did not personify the robot arm (or robotic installation). Discussion focuses on the emerging possibilities in human-robotic interaction of using telerobotics instrumentally to help foster healthy, life-affirming relationships with the natural world.

Young researchers' views on the current and future state of HRI

H.3 [INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL]: ; H.3.1 [Content Analysis and Indexing (Indexing methods; Linguistic processing)]: ; H.3.3 [Information Search and Retrieval (Query formulation; Relevance feedback; Retrieval models; Search process)]: ; I.7.2 [Document Preparation (Index generation)]: ; K.3 [COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION]: ; K.3.1 [Computer Uses in Education ( Computerassisted instruction (CAI); Distance learning)]: ; K.3.2 [Computer and Information Science Education]:

Children distinguish conventional from moral violations in interactions with a personified agent

This paper presents the results of a panel discussion titled “The Future of HRI,” held during an NSF workshop for graduate students on human-robot interaction in August 2006. The panel divided the workshop into groups tasked with inventing models of the field, and then asked these groups their opinions on the future of the field. In general, the workshop participants shared the belief that HRI can and should be seen as a single scientific discipline, despite the fact that it encompasses a variety of beliefs, methods, and philosophies drawn from several “core” disciplines in traditional areas of study. HRI researchers share many interrelated goals, participants felt, and enhancing the lines of communication between different areas would help speed up progress in the field. Common concerns included the unavailability of common robust platforms, the emphasis on human perception over robot perception, and the paucity of longitudinal real-world studies. The authors point to the current lack of consensus on research paradigms and platforms to argue that the field is not yet in the phase that philosopher Thomas Kuhn would call “normal science,” but believe the field shows signs of approaching that phase.

Push-me, pull-me: describing and designing technologies for varying degrees of reflection and invention

This paper describes the preliminary results of a study conducted to answer two questions: (1) Do children generalize their understanding of distinctions between conventional and moral violations in human-human interactions to human-agent interactions? and (2) Does the agent.s ability to make claims to its own rights influence childrens judgments? A two condition, between-subjects study was conducted in which 60 eight and nine year-old children interacted with a personified agent and observed a researcher interacting with the same agent. A semi-structured interview was conducted to investigate the children.s judgments of the observed interactions. Results suggest that children do distinguish between conventional and moral violations in human-agent interactions and that the ability of the agent to make claims to its own rights significantly increases children.s likelihood of distinguishing the two violations.