Page 210 - Designing Autonomous Mobile Robots : Inside the Mindo f an Intellegent Machine

Instilling Pain, Fear and Confidence

immediately began unleashing a verbal tirade upon the hapless robot. This assault, com-
bined with the joy of their own reprieve, caused the vendors in the booth to lose all
control and begin laughing convulsively. The derision from her previous victims only served
to amplify the intensity of the woman’s attack, and the encounter ended with a well-
placed blow from her purse and a promise to report the offensive beast to show
1
management .
There is a lesson here. Bad things will happen to good robots and robots are presumed
guilty unless proven innocent. If there is ever an accident involving humans and robots,
the robot is going to be blamed unless its keepers can provide absolute documented
proof that the incident was caused completely by the human.

When a robot resumes operation following a bumper strike or other pain event, it
should do so under reduced confidence. We will consider confidence shortly, but for now
let’s consider simple ways we can teach our robot to avoid bad things. Paths or areas
where bumper strikes and other unpleasant things occur should ideally be remem-
bered and avoided. If they cannot be avoided, then they should be navigated with
more caution.

A B C

D E F

G

Figure 13.1. Penalizing path segments

1 She did report the robot, but within an hour it had mysteriously escaped incarceration in our
booth and was venturing out again and without further incident.

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