Page 255 - Designing Sociable Robots

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oftechnologiesfrombiomedicalengineeringmayalsopresentnewpossibilitiesforsynthetic
bodies.
Personality This challenge problem concerns endowing sociable robots with rich person-
alities. This supports our tendency to anthropomorphize—to treat the robot as an individual
with human-like qualities and mental states. By doing so, the robot is perceived as being
enough like us that people can understand and predict the robot’s behavior in familiar so-
cial terms. Furthermore, as the amount of social interaction with a technology increases,
people want the technology to be believable (Bates, 1994). The success of cyber-pets such
as PF Magic’s Petz is a case in point. If a sociable robot had a compelling personality, there
is reason to believe that people would be more willing to interact with it, would find the
interaction more enjoyable, and would be more willing to establish a relationship with it.
Animators have amassed many insights into how to convey the illusion of life (Thomas &
Johnston, 1981). Researchers in the field of life-like characters apply many of these insights
in an effort to design personality-rich interactive software agents. More recently, there is a
growing appreciation and interest in giving autonomous robots compelling personalities in
order to foster effective interactions with people. A growing number of commercial products
target the toy and entertainment markets such as Tiger Electronic’s Furby (a creature-like
robot), Hasboro’s My Real Baby (a robotic doll), and Sony’s Aibo (a robotic dog).
Certainly, Kismet’s personality is a crucial aspect of its design and has proven to be en-
gaging to people. It is conveyed through aesthetic appearance, quality of movement, manner
of expression, and child-like voice. Kismet’s conveys a sense of sweetness, innocence, and
curiosity. The robot communicates an “opinion,” expressing approval and disapproval of
how a person interacts with it. It goes through “mood swings,” sometimes acting fussy,
other times acting tolerant and content. This is an appropriate personality for Kismet given
how we want people to interact with it, and given that Kismet is designed to explore those
social learning scenarios that transpire between an infant and a caregiver.

Embodied discourse This grand challenge problem targets a robot’s ability to partake in
natural human conversation as an equally proficient participant. To do so, the robot must
be able to communicate with humans by using natural language that is also complemented
by paralinguistic cues such as gestures, facial expressions, gaze direction, and prosodic
variation.
One of the most advanced systems that tackles this challenge is Rea, a fully embodied
animated-conversation-agent developed at the MIT Media Lab (Cassell et al., 2000). Rea
is an expert in the domain of real estate, serving as a real-estate agent that humans can
interact with to buy property. Rea supports conversational discourse and can sense human
paralinguistic cues such as hand gestures and head pose. Rea communicates in kind, using
variations in prosody, gesture, facial expression, and gaze direction. Our work with Kismet