Sociable Machines
Cynthia Breazeal
MIT Media Lab
Robotic Presence Group
Human-Robot Relations
Honda’s Asimo
Sony’s Aibo
iRobot
Robotic extensions
 Types of relationships
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Face to face with a robot creature
Embodied, distal interactions through a robot avatar
Augmented physicality through robotic extensions
 Capable machines, untrained users, human environment
 Balance human strengths with machine capabilities
 Useful and enjoyable!
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Robots in your everyday life
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Competence in:
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Untrained users of different
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Appropriate mental model
Supports what comes naturally
On the job learning
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Age, gender, culture, etc.
Human centered design
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Human engineered environment
Human social environment
Easy to teach
Long-term relationships
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Acceptance, trust
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Sociable anthropomorphic robots
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Very complex technology
Social interface is (Reeves&Nass)
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Humanoid robots are well suited to
this hypothesis
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Intuitive, natural
Untrained users
Same morphology, sensing
Share social, communication cues
HRI meets HCI
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Study how people want to and do
interact with them.
Informs design
Evaluation methods
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Three research themes
Informed by
scientific
understanding
of humans
And animals
SCIENCE
HCI
Evaluate robot
compatibility with
people
ROBOTICS & AI
Build robots that do real things
In the real world with real people
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Issues for sociable robots today
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The real-world is
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Robots have limited abilities
compared to people
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Complex
Ever-changing
Motor skills
Perceptual abilities
Mental abilities
Imbalance in social
sophistication
Yet, social interaction is
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Tightly coupled
Mutually regulated
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Early exploration into sociable humanoids
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Set appropriate expectations
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Use of expressive feedback
to regulate interaction
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Kismet, MIT AI Lab
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Not human
Robo-baby
Emotive expressions
Communicative displays
Paralinguistic cues
Use science of natural
behavior as a guide
Start “simple” and learn,
develop
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Socially situated learning:
A path to more capable machines?
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Issues for learning systems (robots or otherwise)
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Knowing what matters
Knowing what action to try
Evaluating actions
Correcting errors
Recognize success
Structuring learning
If task is pre-specified, then can do at design-time
If not the case, then what?
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Address issues through structured social interactions
Robots in a benevolent learning environment
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Learning from the way we teach
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Social skills that support learning
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Direct visual attention
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Indicates saliency (i.e.what matters)
Match to human – find similar things
interesting
Robot responds to attention directing cues of
people
Robot sends feedback to person for focus of
attention
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Video of attention system
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Social skills that support learning
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Recognize communicated reinforcement
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Serves as progress estimator
Serves as signal for goal attainment
Robot should recognize affective feedback from
human
Robot signal to human that intent was properly
understood
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Video of communicated affect
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Social skills that support learning
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Communicate internal state to human
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Allows human to:
Predict and understand robot’s behavior
 Tune own behavior to robot
 Improves quality of interaction
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Robot conveys internal state to human in
an intuitive manner
Can be used by both to establish better
quality instruction
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Communication of internal state
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Social skills that support learning
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Regulating the interaction
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Provides structure to the interaction
Interactive games
 Variations on a theme
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Avoid being overwhelmed or under-stimulated
Turn-taking as cornerstone
Human interaction
 Human instruction
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Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Video of proto-conversations
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Lessons from Kismet
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Face to face
In human terms
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Being and Feeling in communication
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Human drive to animate,
anthropomorphize
Importance of gaze
Social qualities
Emotive qualities
Physical interaction
Expressive feedback is vital
Entrainment and accommodation
Mutual regulation
Being engaged vs. interacting
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Related, ongoing directions
HRI gaze studies
Smart Puzzle Fruit
SCIENCE
Organic Robots
HRI &
DESIGN
ENGINEERING
Sensate Silicone Skin
Sociable robots
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Sociable Robots
Stan Winston Studios – Media Lab collaboration
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Next generation sociable robot
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Fully embodied
Organic look and feel
Highly expressive
Socially situated learning
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Robot Avatars/Performers
Stan Winston Studios – Media Lab collaboration
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Symbiotic control
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Puppeteer and “single-mind”
performance
Human provides content, new interfaces
Robot local intelligence to perform
content
Physical medium for embodied
interactions
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Visual, auditory, tactile
Mobile
Shared environment, reference frame
Physical interactions with world and
others
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Organic Robots
What gives a machine a living presence?
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Organic qualities to make them familiar yet distinct
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Intriguing blend between plant and animal
Silicone skin instead of plastic shells
Natural and expressive movement, serpentine
Visual perception of people (faces, movement, color)
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Sensate Synthetic Skin
“…Perhaps next to the brain, the skin is the most important of all our
organ systems.” Ashley Montagu, Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, 1986, p.4
 Sensate skin for environmental interactions
 Active perception of material characteristics (hard, soft)
 Development of novel conductive silicone sensor
 Neuro-physiological representations
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab
Human-Robot Interaction Studies
Controlled studies to better understand the human side of human-robot
interaction
 A series of studies to understand the human
 Focus on the important of gaze in interaction
 Compare physical (robot) verses virtual (animation)
 Examine arousal and engagement through autonomic responses
 To better understand the advantages and limitations of physical vs.
animated media
Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Media Lab