There have been a couple interesting TED Talks on robots recently featuring robots (and their human researchers). This first talk is from Heather Knight of Marilyn Monrobot Labs, who programmed a Nao to not just tell jokes, but actually pay attention to whether the audience was laughing and then adapt its comedy routine on the fly:
The other talk is by Cynthia Breazeal, from MIT's Personal Robotics Group. She talks about her past research and where she sees the future of interactive robots. If for no other reason, it's worth watching for a priceless Cookie Monster moment:
It's interesting how Cynthia discusses her research history in terms of robots like Leonardo, which are autonomous, versus telepresence-type robots. I’m not sure what (if anything) to make of that, and while I tend to agree that at least commercially, telepresence probably has a stronger immediate market than autonomy (especially emotional autonomy) at its current stage of development, I’d still love to see more of Leonardo.
It’s also interesting just how much of a difference presence makes when it comes to humans interacting with technology, and how even a subtle anthropomorphic design can inspire emotional attachment. Autom, in particular, is a good example of how the way to get people to bond with robots is not to try to make them as humanoid as possible, but just to make them slightly familiar, and we humans can fill in all the blanks with no problems.
Evan Ackerman is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Since 2007, he has written over 6,000 articles on robotics and technology. He has a degree in Martian geology and is excellent at playing bagpipes.
