• Name

Socially Smart Robots 

• What is the item

Researchers and universities are developing robots that ineract and react socially with humans

• What Horizon is it on

Third Horizon 

• Explanation of the item 

Social Smarts is the socialization of robots in order to improve the ability to assist people "in homes, schools, offices, and hospitals." Robots that can recognize "social cues, such as verbal instructions, gestures, and expressions" have developed at MIT.  Other robots have been developed at Carnegie Mellon University that can guide conversations by "making 'eye contact' to suggest that its time to speak."  At the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), researchers have "created a machine-learning program that lets a robotic head to develop better facial expressions. http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24231/page1/.  These researchers at UCSD have developed a robot that looks like Albert Einstein which can learn new facial expressions.  http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/23825/?a=f (see video below).

Researchers have also developed robots that are programmed to move around undetected, robots that have the ability to forget unimportant information, robots that deceive each other, and robots that know when humans are angry. http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24231/?a=f

• Photos & Videos (if available)

"Talking to me?: This robot, called Robovie,

uses gaze cues to manage a conversation.

Credit: Bilge Mutlu"

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24231/page1/

According to a UCSD press release:

"Once the robot learned the relationship between facial expressions and

the muscle movements required to make them, the robot learned to make

facial expressions it had never encountered."

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/23825/

• Issues

Does society want to give the human trait of socialability to robots? 

What, if any, threats are there to developing this technology? 

• Sources

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/23825/ 

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