Page 14 - Designing Sociable Robots

breazeal-79017 brea˙fm February 8, 2002 16:1

Preface xiii

but will risk their lives to save their friends. They are not appliances, but servants, arguably
even slaves that are bought and sold into servitude. The same holds true for the androids
of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, although their appearance and
behavior are virtually indistinguishable from their human counterparts. The android, Data,
of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation provides a third example of an
individualized robot, but with an unusual social status. Data has a human-like appearance
but possesses super-human strength and intellect. As an officer on a starship, Data outranks
many of the humans onboard. Yet this android’s personal quest is to become human, and
an essential part of this is to develop human-like emotions.
It is no wonder that science fiction loves robots, androids, and cyborgs. These stories
force us to reflect upon the nature of being human and to question our society. Robots will
become more socially intelligent and by doing so will become more like us. Meanwhile we
strive to enhance ourselves by integrating technology into our lives and even into our bodies.
Technological visionaries argue that we are well on the path to becoming cyborgs, replacing
more and more of our biological matter with technologically enhanced counterparts. Will we
still be human? What does it mean to be a person? The quest of building socially intelligent
robots forces us to examine these questions even today.
I’ve written this book as a step on the way to the creation of sociable robots. A significant
contribution of the book is the presentation of a concrete instance of a nascent sociable
robot, namely Kismet.
Kismet is special and unique. Not only because of what it can do, but also because of
how it makes you feel. Kismet connects to people on a physical level, on a social level,
and on an emotional level. It is jarring for people to play with Kismet and then see it
turned off, suddenly becoming an inanimate object. For this reason, I do not see Kismet
as being a purely scientific or engineering endeavor. It is an artistic endeavor as well. It is
my masterpiece. Unfortunately, I do not think anyone can get a full appreciation of what
Kismet is merely by reading this book. To aid in this, I have included a CD-ROM so that
you can see Kismet in action. Yet, to understand the connection this robot makes with so
many people, I think you have to experience it first hand.