Page 166 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

Chapter 18

DESIGNING SOCIABLE MACHINES

Lessons Learned

Cynthia Breazeal
MIT Media Lab

Abstract Sociable machines are a blend of art, science, and engineering. We highlight
how insights from these disciplines have helped us to address a few key design
issues for building expressive humanoid robots that interact with people in a
social manner.

1. Introduction

What is a sociable machine? In our vision, a sociable machine is able to
communicate and interact with us, understand and even relate to us, in a per-
sonal way. It should be able to understand us and itself in social terms. We,
in turn, should be able to understand it in the same social terms—to be able
to relate to it and to empathize with it. In short, a sociable machine is socially
intelligent in a human-like way, and interacting with it is like interacting with
another person [7].
Humans, however, are the most socially advanced of all species. As one
might imagine, an autonomous humanoid robot that could interpret, respond,
and deliver human-style social cues even at the level of a human infant is quite
a sophisticated machine. For the past few years, we have been exploring the
simplest kind of human-style social interaction and learning (that which occurs
between a human infant with its caregiver) and have used this as a metaphor
for building a sociable robot, called Kismet. This is a scientific endeavor, an
engineering challenge, and an artistic pursuit. This chapter discusses a set of
four design issues underlying Kismet’s compelling, life-like behavior, and the
lessons we have learned in building a robot like Kismet.