Page 248 - Designing Sociable Robots

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13 Grand Challenges of Building Sociable Robots

Human beings are a social species of extraordinary ability. Overcoming social challenges
has played a significant role in our evolution. Interacting socially with others is critical
for our development, our education, and our day-to-day existence as members of a greater
society. Our sociability touches upon the most human of qualities: personality, identity,
emotions, empathy, loyalty, friendship, and more. If we are to ever understand human
intelligence, human nature, and human identity, we cannot ignore our sociality.
The directions and approaches presented in this book are inspired by human social
intelligence. Certainly, my experiences and efforts in trying to capture a few aspects of even
the simplest form of human social behavior (that of a human infant) has been humbling, to
say the least. In the end, it has deepened my appreciation of human abilities. Through the
process of building a sociable robot, from Kismet and beyond, I hope to achieve a deeper
understanding of this fascinating subject.
In this chapter I recap the significant contributions of this body of work with Kismet, and
then look to the future. I outline some grand challenge problems for building a robot whose
socialintelligencemightsomedayrivalourown.Thefieldofsociableroboticsisnascent,and
much work remains to be done. I do not claim that this is a complete treatment. Instead, these
challenge problems will be subject to revision over time, as new challenges are encountered
and old challenges are resolved. My work with Kismet touches on some of these grand chal-
lenge problems. A growing number of researchers have begun to address others. I highlight
a few of these efforts in this chapter, concentrating on work with autonomous robots.
The preceding chapters give an in-depth presentation of Kismet’s physical design and
the design of its synthetic nervous system. A series of issues that have been found important
when designing autonomous robots that engage humans in natural, intuitive, and social
interaction have been outlined. Some of these issues pertain to the physical design of the
robot: its aesthetics, its sensory configuration, and its degrees of freedom. Kismet was
designed according to these principles.
Other issues pertain to the design of the synthetic nervous system. To address these com-
putational issues, this book presents a framework that encompasses the architecture, the
mechanisms, the representations, and the levels of control for building a sociable machine.
I have emphasized how designing for a human in the loop profoundly impacts how one thinks
about the robot control problem, largely because robot’s actions have social consequences
that extend far beyond the immediate physical act. Hence, one must carefully consider the
social constraints imposed on the robot’s observable behavior. The designer can use this to
benefit the quality of interaction between robot and human, however, as illustrated in the nu-
merous ways Kismet proactively regulates its interaction with the human so that the interac-
tion is appropriate for both partners. The process of social amplification is a prime example.
In an effort to make the robot’s behavior readable, believable, and well-matched to the
human’s social expectations and behavior, several theories, models, and concepts from

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