a couple of years ago I was watching a
football game you know it goes was not
all that exciting but towards the end it
became really exciting and I was getting
into it home team trying to score a goal
I wanted to beer but I didn’t want to
leave the screen to go to the kitchen
and then I thought how convenient it
would be to have a beer robot you know
this little fridge on wheels that would
come in I would just call out get me a
beer and come but then it dawned on me
what if it would come in and would say
you’re not getting another one because
you had enough beer already excuse me
but maybe my wife programmed it she
knows me or maybe my doctor or maybe
maybe my health insurance company or my
employer so all of a sudden I wasn’t
quite sure about how convenient this
robotic future of ours was going to be
and at the same time it’s clear that
robots will come into our houses there
will be in our living rooms there will
be in our kitchens
kitchens there will be in our gardens
and in our beds and the reasons for
these are actually quite simple first of
all technically to become really much
better better sensors better observation
better motors more motoric capacities
more processing speed so they will learn
very quickly but most of all the most
important reason that robots will be in
our homes is a very mundane one that
will become cheaper the price goes down
five seven years ago at my department of
artificial intelligence at the robot
university of Naimah and we bought the
now one of the robots you see everywhere
and we had to pay well over a tenth
euro last year we bought one it was
below 5,000 if that development
continues then pretty soon there will be
around six seven eight hundred euros and
then you can buy a nice robot at the
prize of a TV or a refrigerator an M
people will start buying them and when
people start buying there will be a
market so there will be better robots a
better products and then it will go fast
and Oh more or less the same will happen
as what happened in the 80s with a
personal computer at the beginning no
one had a computer then the Commodore 64
appeared and we started buying these
things I remember programming my first
basic program number 64 with a little
tape you know how the memory was just
beautiful and within 10 years almost
every household had a computer so we can
expect something similar like that to
happen within maybe 5 10 15 years who
knows now that’s where the challenges
begin because first of all robots and
artificial intelligence in general is
this weird combination of smartness
superhuman intelligence and incredible
stupidity they can be the success they
can be the zest goal they’re incredible
in analyzing huge amount of data and
finding patterns that would be invisible
to us at the same time they’re not very
good in common sense just understanding
what the situation is all about
they have no social intelligence no
empathy so they’re gonna be really
different from us and we will have to
deal with this weird combination of
super intelligence and stupor stupidity
and that’s going to show for instance
when we give them instructions and they
will follow it literally instead of
thinking about what we actually mean
when we give them those instructions or
there won’t be that easily able to make
exceptions to the rule you know it’s a
football game beer well this is just you
know a normal competition game so but ok
this is the final for the Champions
League so yeah there’s an exception
well if you ask me okay that’s so
another challenge who would be that
different generations might be affected
differently by robots and they will have
different values different expectations
different hopes or fears in relation to
robots so imagine for instance this
young kid five six year old and he or
she will be growing up with a robot
friend and his robot friend will always
be supportive play the games that the
guy the the child wants or the girl
wants you know if there’s something to
comfort robot will always be there will
be a perfect friend that’s great but I
grew up with a brother and a sister now
don’t get me wrong they were great and
they still are and I loved him dearly
but they never wanted to play the games
that I wanted to play and if I wanted to
play with the toy then especially my
little brother who was much faster than
me would always get it first but these
little frictions actually helped me to
develop my social skills you know they
prepared me for later at school or at
work or in society at large
to deal with situations that would
require some negotiation for instance so
how certain are we that the social
development of infants will really be
supported by robot friends it’s a big
topic another topic is for instance the
likes or the dislikes that people have
now my mother she’s 87 she’s doing very
well but she needs increasingly some
support she would be absolutely
horrified by the idea of having a robot
in her house helping her out she would
feel socially isolated neglected to be
supported by a thing but there’s other
possibilities here too so at one time I
gave a lecture in Nijmegen at the
library it was a young woman or
somewhere in her 20s in a wheelchair and
afterwards she came to me she said well
you know when I have to take a bath I
need assistance but I don’t want these
caregivers to see me like this
naked in the bathtub
for me a robot would be nicely
impersonal it would you know protect my
privacy much better than could be done
with with people so you can see that
there’s all these kinds of different
questions about what we want and why
with robots in the near future and
there’s an additional point maybe the
biggest challenge of all that we not
often realize except on days like today
and that generations mix all the time
take a simple house situation at home
you know you have parents you have the
kids you have the grandparents visiting
and while we’re interacting during those
situations we do that with enormous
grace and ease you talk to a child and
you talk slightly differently than you
do to an out adult may be slightly more
simple slightly more cheerful with an LG
or more let’s say businesslike then with
someone with the beginning dementia you
also talk more simple but not in the
same way that you did to the child maybe
out of respect for greater wisdom etc so
we adapt to this mix of generations very
fluently almost automatically without
thinking so how are we going to prepare
our robots to deal with those kind of
mixed situations it’s very clear that
the situation is going to require a lot
of subtlety and we don’t even understand
very well the mechanisms operative in us
it’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all
kind of solution when I think about this
and I teach to my students you know we
have in the AI department at night and
around 180 new students coming in every
year and they are learning to develop
the technology for the next decade it’s
that generation they’re always between
twenty and twenty four more or less I
get older every year my students stay
exactly the same
Hof era
come harder and harder but they will
develop this new technology and for them
it’s kind of easy there are among the
early adopters of the technology they
have the latest you know gadgets and
stuff and they’re the easy adapters to
it they don’t need to read a manual you
don’t even have manuals in you anymore
because they don’t require them it’s
like they were born knowing what the
buttons do in everything I have to study
they don’t but their products will work
for people of other generations too and
so the big challenge for instance for me
and my colleagues at the ìiî
Department is how to prepare them for
that difference in perspectives that
they need to take in order to develop
the right kind of products the robots
that will fit the kind of values the
expectations or the hopes of the fears
or different generations now in design
there’s this beautiful tool that’s been
developed for for people that make all
kinds of let’s say simple products it’s
called the old-age suit for instance I’m
not sure if you ever seen them but they
use this for students to get a feel of
the perspective of the older generation
I don’t want to make you depressed but
let me summarize this so you get goggles
that block your view a little bit so you
see worse you get earphones that muffle
the sound so you hear less there’s this
kneecap that makes you not able to bend
your knee so you have to you know walk
excuse me for saying this but this is
fine for let’s say physical
understanding the understanding of the
physical situation that may be elderly
generations encounter but we don’t have
anything like a cognitive old-age suit
exactly how do you prepare students for
let’s say the smaller periods of
concentration that you can achieve when
you get a little bit older or maybe the
deeper understanding of the motivation
of people behind their actions due to
your longer life experience in your
greater wisdom that’s also a cognitive
difference although my students of
course would not be willing to
acknowledge this very easily the same
goes for a cognitive suit for very young
children we’ve all been 6 or 7 years old
but do we really remember how we
perceive the world in those days so one
of the biggest challenges actually in
robotics these days for the kind of
problems that I just mentioned is how to
prepare this new generation of
developers for the difference in
perspective and well what I suggested
them in my college days too is there’s
only one way discuss it talk to your
parents to your grandparents ask them
how they like the technology what they
don’t like about the technology what
they don’t like about the implications
of the technology what they are afraid
of what they would prefer ask them don’t
think for the other generations just ask
them so in a way robotics makes us
understand the beauty and the difficulty
of this enormous generation mix in which
we found ourselves and it’s by producing
these machines that are not capable of
doing what we do that we learn to
appreciate ourselves actually more we
see by building models in robotics the
limitations of our own understanding so
as we were here I think today on stage
and and you in the audience we adapt to
each other to members of different
generations which is great great ease
and facility robotics makes us
understand how complex this is but also
how valuable most of all how beautiful
this generation mixes thank you very
much
[Applause]
[Music]
football game you know it goes was not
all that exciting but towards the end it
became really exciting and I was getting
into it home team trying to score a goal
I wanted to beer but I didn’t want to
leave the screen to go to the kitchen
and then I thought how convenient it
would be to have a beer robot you know
this little fridge on wheels that would
come in I would just call out get me a
beer and come but then it dawned on me
what if it would come in and would say
you’re not getting another one because
you had enough beer already excuse me
but maybe my wife programmed it she
knows me or maybe my doctor or maybe
maybe my health insurance company or my
employer so all of a sudden I wasn’t
quite sure about how convenient this
robotic future of ours was going to be
and at the same time it’s clear that
robots will come into our houses there
will be in our living rooms there will
be in our kitchens
kitchens there will be in our gardens
and in our beds and the reasons for
these are actually quite simple first of
all technically to become really much
better better sensors better observation
better motors more motoric capacities
more processing speed so they will learn
very quickly but most of all the most
important reason that robots will be in
our homes is a very mundane one that
will become cheaper the price goes down
five seven years ago at my department of
artificial intelligence at the robot
university of Naimah and we bought the
now one of the robots you see everywhere
and we had to pay well over a tenth
euro last year we bought one it was
below 5,000 if that development
continues then pretty soon there will be
around six seven eight hundred euros and
then you can buy a nice robot at the
prize of a TV or a refrigerator an M
people will start buying them and when
people start buying there will be a
market so there will be better robots a
better products and then it will go fast
and Oh more or less the same will happen
as what happened in the 80s with a
personal computer at the beginning no
one had a computer then the Commodore 64
appeared and we started buying these
things I remember programming my first
basic program number 64 with a little
tape you know how the memory was just
beautiful and within 10 years almost
every household had a computer so we can
expect something similar like that to
happen within maybe 5 10 15 years who
knows now that’s where the challenges
begin because first of all robots and
artificial intelligence in general is
this weird combination of smartness
superhuman intelligence and incredible
stupidity they can be the success they
can be the zest goal they’re incredible
in analyzing huge amount of data and
finding patterns that would be invisible
to us at the same time they’re not very
good in common sense just understanding
what the situation is all about
they have no social intelligence no
empathy so they’re gonna be really
different from us and we will have to
deal with this weird combination of
super intelligence and stupor stupidity
and that’s going to show for instance
when we give them instructions and they
will follow it literally instead of
thinking about what we actually mean
when we give them those instructions or
there won’t be that easily able to make
exceptions to the rule you know it’s a
football game beer well this is just you
know a normal competition game so but ok
this is the final for the Champions
League so yeah there’s an exception
well if you ask me okay that’s so
another challenge who would be that
different generations might be affected
differently by robots and they will have
different values different expectations
different hopes or fears in relation to
robots so imagine for instance this
young kid five six year old and he or
she will be growing up with a robot
friend and his robot friend will always
be supportive play the games that the
guy the the child wants or the girl
wants you know if there’s something to
comfort robot will always be there will
be a perfect friend that’s great but I
grew up with a brother and a sister now
don’t get me wrong they were great and
they still are and I loved him dearly
but they never wanted to play the games
that I wanted to play and if I wanted to
play with the toy then especially my
little brother who was much faster than
me would always get it first but these
little frictions actually helped me to
develop my social skills you know they
prepared me for later at school or at
work or in society at large
to deal with situations that would
require some negotiation for instance so
how certain are we that the social
development of infants will really be
supported by robot friends it’s a big
topic another topic is for instance the
likes or the dislikes that people have
now my mother she’s 87 she’s doing very
well but she needs increasingly some
support she would be absolutely
horrified by the idea of having a robot
in her house helping her out she would
feel socially isolated neglected to be
supported by a thing but there’s other
possibilities here too so at one time I
gave a lecture in Nijmegen at the
library it was a young woman or
somewhere in her 20s in a wheelchair and
afterwards she came to me she said well
you know when I have to take a bath I
need assistance but I don’t want these
caregivers to see me like this
naked in the bathtub
for me a robot would be nicely
impersonal it would you know protect my
privacy much better than could be done
with with people so you can see that
there’s all these kinds of different
questions about what we want and why
with robots in the near future and
there’s an additional point maybe the
biggest challenge of all that we not
often realize except on days like today
and that generations mix all the time
take a simple house situation at home
you know you have parents you have the
kids you have the grandparents visiting
and while we’re interacting during those
situations we do that with enormous
grace and ease you talk to a child and
you talk slightly differently than you
do to an out adult may be slightly more
simple slightly more cheerful with an LG
or more let’s say businesslike then with
someone with the beginning dementia you
also talk more simple but not in the
same way that you did to the child maybe
out of respect for greater wisdom etc so
we adapt to this mix of generations very
fluently almost automatically without
thinking so how are we going to prepare
our robots to deal with those kind of
mixed situations it’s very clear that
the situation is going to require a lot
of subtlety and we don’t even understand
very well the mechanisms operative in us
it’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all
kind of solution when I think about this
and I teach to my students you know we
have in the AI department at night and
around 180 new students coming in every
year and they are learning to develop
the technology for the next decade it’s
that generation they’re always between
twenty and twenty four more or less I
get older every year my students stay
exactly the same
Hof era
come harder and harder but they will
develop this new technology and for them
it’s kind of easy there are among the
early adopters of the technology they
have the latest you know gadgets and
stuff and they’re the easy adapters to
it they don’t need to read a manual you
don’t even have manuals in you anymore
because they don’t require them it’s
like they were born knowing what the
buttons do in everything I have to study
they don’t but their products will work
for people of other generations too and
so the big challenge for instance for me
and my colleagues at the ìiî
Department is how to prepare them for
that difference in perspectives that
they need to take in order to develop
the right kind of products the robots
that will fit the kind of values the
expectations or the hopes of the fears
or different generations now in design
there’s this beautiful tool that’s been
developed for for people that make all
kinds of let’s say simple products it’s
called the old-age suit for instance I’m
not sure if you ever seen them but they
use this for students to get a feel of
the perspective of the older generation
I don’t want to make you depressed but
let me summarize this so you get goggles
that block your view a little bit so you
see worse you get earphones that muffle
the sound so you hear less there’s this
kneecap that makes you not able to bend
your knee so you have to you know walk
excuse me for saying this but this is
fine for let’s say physical
understanding the understanding of the
physical situation that may be elderly
generations encounter but we don’t have
anything like a cognitive old-age suit
exactly how do you prepare students for
let’s say the smaller periods of
concentration that you can achieve when
you get a little bit older or maybe the
deeper understanding of the motivation
of people behind their actions due to
your longer life experience in your
greater wisdom that’s also a cognitive
difference although my students of
course would not be willing to
acknowledge this very easily the same
goes for a cognitive suit for very young
children we’ve all been 6 or 7 years old
but do we really remember how we
perceive the world in those days so one
of the biggest challenges actually in
robotics these days for the kind of
problems that I just mentioned is how to
prepare this new generation of
developers for the difference in
perspective and well what I suggested
them in my college days too is there’s
only one way discuss it talk to your
parents to your grandparents ask them
how they like the technology what they
don’t like about the technology what
they don’t like about the implications
of the technology what they are afraid
of what they would prefer ask them don’t
think for the other generations just ask
them so in a way robotics makes us
understand the beauty and the difficulty
of this enormous generation mix in which
we found ourselves and it’s by producing
these machines that are not capable of
doing what we do that we learn to
appreciate ourselves actually more we
see by building models in robotics the
limitations of our own understanding so
as we were here I think today on stage
and and you in the audience we adapt to
each other to members of different
generations which is great great ease
and facility robotics makes us
understand how complex this is but also
how valuable most of all how beautiful
this generation mixes thank you very
much
[Applause]
[Music]
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