Page 61 - Designing Sociable Robots

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42 Chapter 4

4.2 Design Hints from Animals, Humans, and Infants

In this section, I briefly present ideas for how natural systems address similar issues as those
outlined above. Many of these ideas have shaped the design of Kismet’s synthetic nervous
system. Accordingly, I motivate the high-level design of each SNS subsystem, how each
subsystem interfaces with the others, and the responsibility of each for the overall SNS.
The following chapters of this book present each subsystem in more detail.
The design of the underlying architecture of the SNS is heavily inspired by models,
mechanisms, and theories from the scientific study of intelligent behavior in living creatures.
For many years, these fields have sought explanatory models for how natural systems
address the aforementioned issues. It is important, however, to distinguish the psychological
theory/hypothesis from its underlying implementation in Kismet.
The particular models used to design Kismet’s SNS are not necessarily the most recent
nor popular in their respective fields. They were chosen based on how easily they could be
applied to this application, how compatible they are with other aspects of the system, and
how well they could address the relevant issues within synthetic creatures. My focus has
been to engineer a system that exhibits the desired behavior, and scientific findings from the
study of natural systems have been useful in this endeavor. My aim has not been to explicitly
test or verify the validity of these models or theories. Limitations of Kismet’s performance
could be ascribed to limitations in the mechanics of the implementation (dynamic response
of the actuators, processing power, latencies in communication), as well as to the limitations
of the models used.
Idonotclaimexplanatorypowerforunderstandinghumanbehaviorwiththisimplementa-
tion. I do not claim equivalence with psychological aspects of human behavior such as emo-
tions, attention, affect, motivation, etc. However, I have implemented synthetic analogs of
proposed models, I have integrated them within the same robot, and I have situated Kismet in
a social environment. The emergent behavior between Kismet’s SNS and its social environ-
mentisquitecompelling.WhenIevaluateKismet,Idosowithanengineer’seye.Iamtesting
the adequacy of Kismet’s performance, not that of the underlying psychological models.
Below, I highlight special considerations from natural systems that have inspired the
design of the robot’s SNS. Infants do not come into this world as mindless, flailing skin
bags. Instead, they are born as a coherent system, albeit immature, with the ability to respond
to and act within their environment in a manner that promotes their survival and continued
growth. It is the designer’s challenge to bestow upon the robot the innate endowments (i.e.,
the initial set of software and hardware) that implement similar abilities to that of a newborn.
This forms the foundation upon which learning can take place.
Models from ethology have a strong influence in addressing the behavioral issues of the
system (e.g., relevance, coherence, concurrency, persistence, and opportunism). As such,