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< Contents ERCIM News No. 53,

  
April 2003 SPECIAL THEME: COGNITIVE SYSTE
  
Man and Machine
by Brian R. Duffy

The primary research challenges of the Anthropos project are to understand t

relationship and to establish a bond between man and machine. Can the illusi
This of life and intelligence emerge through simply engaging people in social
issue in interaction with a robot?
pdf
(60 AI research to date has led to a wealth of strategies for solving local problems with
pages; varying degrees of success. The next step has been to integrate these tools into wh
9,6 Mb) systems, such as robotics, to realise a system that displays a breadth of 'intelligent'
behaviour. This integration proved to be nontrivial and highlighted issues with class
AI such as its strong representation approaches and often narrow take on intelligen
looking to extend beyond traditional paradigms in developing an artificial form of
'intelligence', the field of social robotics has recently emerged.
Free
subscript
ion An impressive display of human intelligence is in our ability to adapt in social scena
In fact, social intelligence has been theorised as the mechanism from which the
capability for the complexity of human languages evolved. Thus, one of the purpose
Media Lab Europe's research on socially-capable robots is to investigate human so
intelligence and behaviour. From a human-machine interaction perspective, a socia
Archive: capable robot facilitates our access to the digital world through intuitive social
mechanisms to improve or provide alternative approaches in education, information
dissemination, and our future daily interactions with machines. Once domestic robo
become more than just a washing machine in the home, our social interaction with t
becomes inevitable. The issue is how do we realise such a socially capable robot?

previous
issue
(Number
52
January
2003):
Special
theme:
Embedd
ed
Systems

all
previous
issues

Next
issue: Media Lab Europe's
July 'JoeRobot' at the
2003 Flutterfugue performance
with SmartLab and NYU
Next CATLab in London 2002.
Special Photo courtesy of Brent
theme: Jones
Applicati In order to begin answering these questions, the Anthropos Project at Media Lab Eu
ons and seeks to decompose the interaction issues between man and machine. The current
Platform research areas are:
s for the
Mobile  Balancing function and form for social robots. Anthropos and JoeRobot (Fig
User 1) are prototypes built to explore the development of socially capable robots
to the notion of expandability and rapid prototyping, a modular nervous syste
strategy employs standardised interface protocols (Firewire and USB) for
actuator and perceptor components. Research on integrating a socially capa
About robot into performance spaces has demonstrated the power of the form as a
ERCIM interface to the digital information domain (figure 1). People's willingness to
News engage with a machine that judiciously employs anthropomorphic features w
are familiar with in social contexts facilitates man-machine interaction.
 Strength and degree of minimal expression and communication. The Emotio
Robots work is a series of experiments to investigate how minimal the set of
humanlike features can be for a social robot. Data illustrates people's prope
to attribute such concepts as emotions and intelligence to machines perform
computationally simple behaviours.
 The seamless integration of real physical worlds and digital information spac
The Agent Chameleons project strives to develop digital 'minds' that can
seamlessly migrate, mutate and evolve on their journey between and within
physical and digital information spaces. This challenges the traditional
boundaries between the physical and the virtual through the empowerment
mobile agents. Three key attributes mutation, migration and evolution under
the Agent Chameleons concept where digital personal assistants are develo
that opportunistically migrate and choose a 'body' (whether a robot, an avata
virtual reality, an animated character on a PDA, or a web agent) to facilitate
intentions.
 The Anthropos Project draws this work together to look at developing a different
perspective on what an artificially intelligent entity could become. Machines have
intrinsic properties that are often seen as hindrances when the reference is either
humans or other biological entities. The objective is to embrace those aspects that
constructive and integrate these with a machine's inherent advantages, ie being a
machine. While arguments have prevailed for many years over the nature of intellig
and whether it can be realised in a machine, this work aims to demonstrate the pow
perceived intelligence and people's willingness to interpret a social robots interactio
according to human-like social references. The key issue becomes a balance betwe
function and form.

Links:
Anthropos Project at Media Lab Europe: http://anthropos.mle.ie

Please contact:
Brian R. Duffy, Media Lab Europe, Dublin, Ireland
Tel: +353 1 474 2823
E-mail: brd@media.mit.edu