impression and that’s true if you’re a
robot as well as if you’re a person and
the first time that I met one of these
robots was at a place called Willow
Garage in 2008 and when I went to visit
there my house walked me into the
building and we met this little guy he
was rolling into the hallway came up to
me sat there stared blankly past me did
nothing for a while rapidly spun his
head around a hundred eighty degrees and
then ran away and that was not a great
first impression the thing that I
learned about robots that day is that
you know they they kind of do their own
thing and they’re not totally aware of
us and I think as we’re experimenting
with these possible robot futures we
actually end up learning a lot more
about ourselves as opposed to just these
machines and what I learned that day was
that I had pretty high expectations for
this little dude right he was not only
supposed to be able to navigate the
physical world but also be able to
navigate my social world he’s in my
space it’s a personal robot why didn’t
it understand me my host explained to me
that well the robots trying to get from
point A to point B and you were an
obstacle in his way so he had to replan
his path figure out where to go and then
get there some other way which was
actually not a very efficient thing to
do if that robot had figured out that I
was a person not a chair and that I was
willing to get out of its way if it was
trying to get somewhere then it actually
would have been more efficient at
getting its job done if it had bothered
to notice that I was a human and that I
have different affordances than things
like chairs and walls do you know we
tend to think of these robots as being
from outer space and from the future and
from science-fiction and while that
could be true I’d actually like to argue
that robots are here today and they live
and work amongst us right now these are
two robots that live in my home they
vacuum the floors and they cut the grass
every single day which is more than I
would do if I actually had time to do
these tests and they’d probably do it
better than I would – this one actually
takes care of my kitty every single time
he uses the box it cleans it which is
not something I’m willing to do and it
actually makes his life better as well
as mine and while we call these robot
products right that’s a robot vacuum
cleaner it’s a robot lawnmower it’s a
robot litter box I think there’s
actually a bunch of other
robots hiding in plain sight that had
just become so darn useful and so darn
mundane that we call them things like
dishwasher right they get new names they
don’t get called robot anymore because
they actually serve a purpose in our
lives
similarly a thermostat right I know my
robotics friends out there probably
cringing at me calling this a robot but
it has a goal its goal is to make my
house 66 degrees Fahrenheit and it
senses the world it knows it’s a little
bit cold it makes a plan and then it
acts on the physical world it’s robotics
even if it might not look like Rosie the
robot it’s doing something that’s that’s
really useful in my life so I don’t have
to take care of turning the temperature
up and down myself
and I think you know these systems live
and work amongst us now and not only are
these systems living amongst us but you
are probably a robot operator too when
you drive your car it feels like you’re
operating machinery you are also going
from point A to point B but your car
probably has power steering
it probably has automatic braking
systems it might have an automatic
transmission and maybe even adaptive
cruise control and while it might not be
a fully autonomous car it has bits of
autonomy and they’re so useful and they
make us drive safer that and we just
sort of feel like they’re invisible in
use right so when you’re driving your
car you should just feel like you’re
going from one place to another it
doesn’t feel like it’s this big thing
that you have to deal with and operate
and use these controls because we spend
so long learning how to drive that
they’ve become sort of extensions of
ourselves when you park that car in that
tight little garage space you know where
your corners are and when you drive a
rental car that maybe you haven’t driven
before you take some time to get used to
your new robot body
and this is also true for people who
operate other types of robots so I’d
like to share with you a few stories
about that dealing with the problem of
remote collaboration so at Willow Garage
I had a co-worker named Dallas and
Dallas look like this he worked from his
home in Indiana in our company in
California and so he was a voice in a
box on the table and most of our
meetings which is kind of ok except that
you know if we had a really heated
debate and we didn’t really like what he
was saying we might just hang up on him
ahh and then we might have a meeting
after that meeting
you know actually make the decisions in
the hallway afterwards when he wasn’t
there anymore and that so wasn’t so
great for him and as a robotics company
at Willow Wright we had some extra robot
body parts laying around so Dallas and
his buddy Kurt put together this thing
which looks kind of like Skype on a
stick on wheels which seems like a techy
silly toy but really it’s probably one
of the most powerful tools that I’ve
seen ever made for remote collaboration
so now if I didn’t answer Dallas’s email
question right he could literally roll
into my office block my doorway and ask
me the question again until I answered
it and I’m not going to turn him off
right that’s kind of rude um not only
was it good for these one-on-one
communications but also for just showing
up at the company All Hands meeting
right getting your butt in that chair
and showing people that you were present
and committed to your project is a big
deal and can help promote collaboration
a ton and it we saw this over the period
of months and in years not only in our
company but at others too
the best thing that can happen with
these systems is that it starts to feel
like you’re just there right it’s just
you it’s just your body and so people
actually start to give these things
personal space so when you’re having a
stand-up meeting people will sort of
stand around the space just as they
would if you were there in person and
that’s great until there’s breakdowns
and it’s not and so people you know when
they first see these robots are like wow
where’s the components oh there must be
a camera over then they start poking
your face you’re talking too softly I’m
going to turn up your volume which is
kind of like having a co-worker walk up
to you and saying you’re speaking too
softly I’m going to turn up your face
right that’s awkward and not okay and so
we end up having to build these new
social norms around using these systems
similarly you know as you start feeling
like it’s your body you start noticing
things like oh my robots kind of short
and so Dallas would say things to me he
was six foot tall and we would take him
via robot – you know cocktail parties
and things like that as you do and the
robot was about five foot tall which is
close to my height and he would tell me
you know people are not really looking
at me I feel like I’m just looking at
the sea of shoulders and it just got we
need a tall a robot and I told him um no
you get to walk in my shoes for today
you get to see what it’s like to be on
the shorter end of the spectrum
and he actually ended up building a lot
of empathy for that experience which was
kind of great so when he come in as an
in person he no longer stood over me as
he was talking to me he would sit down
and talk to me I to I which is kind of a
beautiful thing and so we actually
decided to look at this in the
laboratory and see if what other kinds
of differences things like robot height
would make and so half of the people in
our study used a shorter robot half of
the people in our study used a taller
robot and we actually found that the
exact same person who has the exact same
body and says the exact same things to
someone is more persuasive and perceived
as being more credible if they’re in a
taller robot form makes no rational
sense but that’s why we study psychology
and really you know the way that cliff
Nass would put this is that we’re having
to deal with these new technologies
despite the fact that we have very old
brains right human psychology is not
changing at the same speed that Tec is
and so we’re always playing catch-up and
trying to make sense of this world where
these autonomous things are running
around and usually things that talk are
people not machines right and so we
breathe a lot of meaning into things
like just height of a machine not a
person and attribute that to the person
using the system you know this I think
is really important when you’re thinking
about robotics it’s not so much about
reinventing humans it’s more about
figuring out how we extend ourselves
right and we end up using these things
in ways that are sort of surprising so
these guys are you know they can’t play
pool because the robots don’t have arms
but they can heckle the guys who are
playing pool and and that can be an
important thing for team bonding which
is kind of neat people who get really
good at operating these systems will
even do things like make up new games
like robot soccer in the middle of the
night I’m pushing the trash cans around
but not everyone’s good a lot of people
have trouble operating these systems
this is actually a guy who logged into
the robot and his eyeball was turned 90
degrees to the left he didn’t know that
and so he ended up just bashing around
the office running into people’s desk
getting super embarrassed laughing about
it his volume was way too high and this
guy here in the the image is telling me
like we need a robot mute button and by
that what he really meant was we don’t
want it to be so disruptive so as a
robotics company we added some obstacle
avoidance to the system it got a little
laser rangefinder that could see the
obstacles and if eyes are about
operator try to say run into a chair it
wouldn’t let me it would just plan a
path around which seems like a good idea
people did hit fewer obstacles using
that system obviously but actually for
some of the people it took them a lot
longer to get through our obstacle
course and we wanted to know why it
turns out that there’s this important
human dimension a personality invention
called locus of control and people who
have a strong internal locus of control
they need to be the masters of their own
destiny really don’t like giving up
control to an autonomous system so much
so that they will fight the economy if I
want to hit that chair I’m going to hit
that chair and so they would actually
suffer from having that autonomous
assistance which is an important thing
for us to know as we’re building
increasingly autonomous saved cars right
how are different people going to
grapple with that loss of control it’s
going to be different depending on human
dimensions we we can’t treat humans as
if we’re just one monolithic thing we
vary by personality by culture we even
vary by emotional state moment to moment
and being able to design these systems
that’s human robot interaction systems
and we need to take into account the
human dimensions not just the
technological ones along with a sense of
control also comes a sense of
responsibility and if you were in robot
operator using one of these systems this
is what the interface would look like it
looks a little bit like a video game
which can be good because that’s very
familiar to people but it can also be
bad because it makes people feel like
it’s a video game we had a bunch of kids
over in Stanford play with the system
and drive the robot around our office in
Menlo Park and the kids started saying
things like ten points if you hit that
guy over there 20 points for that one
and they would chase him down the
hallway right I told them um those are
real people they’re actually going to
bleed and feel pain if you hit them and
they’d be there oh okay got it but it’s
five minutes later they’d be like I want
20 points with that guy over there he
just looks like he needs to get hit and
so it’s a little bit like Ender’s Game
right like there is a real world on that
other side and I think it’s our
responsibility as people designing these
interfaces to help people remember that
there’s real consequences to their
actions and to feel a sense of
responsibility when they’re operating
these increasingly autonomous things
these are kind of a great example of you
know experimenting with one possible
robotic future and I think it’s pretty
cool that we can extend ourselves I
learn about the ways that we extend
ourselves into these machines while at
the same time being able to express our
humanity in our personality we also
build empathy for others in terms of
being shorter taller faster slower and
maybe even armless which is kind of neat
we also build empathy for the robots
themselves so this is one of my favorite
robots is called the tween but and this
guy has a little flag that says I’m
trying to get to this intersection in
Manhattan and it’s cute and rolls
forward that’s it
it doesn’t know how to build a map it
doesn’t know how to see the world it
just asked for help and the nice thing
about people is that it you know it can
actually depend upon the kindness of
strangers it did make it across the park
to the other side of Manhattan which is
pretty great just because people would
pick it up and point in the right
direction and that’s great right I think
you know we’re trying to build this
human robot world in which we can
co-exist and collaborate with one
another and we don’t need to be fully
autonomous and just do things on our own
we actually do things together and to
make that happen we actually need help
from people like the artists and the
designers the policymakers the legal
scholars psychologists sociologists
anthropologists we need more
perspectives in the room if we’re going
to do the thing that’s Ducard says we
should do which is you know invent the
future that we actually want to live in
and I think you know we can continue to
experiment with these different robotic
features together and in doing so we end
up we will end up learning a lot more
about ourselves thank you [Applause]