Robot Builders Seek a Little Help From Sci-Fi
New Scientist
(09/04/08) Simonite, Tom

Washington University in St. Louis
roboticist Bill Smart and researcher Lara Bovilsky recently held a workshop on
people's wariness of robots at the RO-MAN conference on human-robot interaction
in Munich, Germany. "Most people have never seen a robot before," Smart says.
"Their experiences–such as they are–all come from movies or literature." Smart
says that people have a pre-established theory about how things should behave,
and if a robot does not match that theory they get nervous. For example, not
everyone reacted well to a robot Smart and colleagues built that moved around a
room taking photos of people. Smart says people who thought of the robot as a
camera with legs were satisfied, but people that thought of it as a photographer
were disappointed. Smart believes that these heightened expectations are the
result of unrealistic human-like robots in movies and books. Instead of forcing
people to change their expectations, Smart believes it makes sense to study ho w
people's ideas on robots are influenced by fiction. This knowledge could then be
used to design robots that match those expectations. Sheffield University
roboticist Noel Sharkey says that studying how computer animators make us
connect with simple, nonhuman objects also could help people connect with
robots.
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