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Almost Alive : Robots and Androids

Balkenius, Christian LU orcid and Johansson, Birger LU orcid (2022) In Frontiers in Human Dynamics 4. p.1-7
Abstract
Life-likeness is a property that can be used both to deceive people that a robot is more intelligent than it is or to facilitate the natural communication with humans. Over the years, different criteria have guided the design of intelligent systems, ranging from attempts to produce human-like language to trying to make a robot look like an actual human. We outline some relevant historical developments that all rely on different forms of mimicry of human life or intelligence. Many such approaches have been to some extent successful. However, we want to argue that there are ways to exploit aspects of life-likeness without deception. A life-like robot has advantages in communicating with humans, not because we believe it to be alive, but... (More)
Life-likeness is a property that can be used both to deceive people that a robot is more intelligent than it is or to facilitate the natural communication with humans. Over the years, different criteria have guided the design of intelligent systems, ranging from attempts to produce human-like language to trying to make a robot look like an actual human. We outline some relevant historical developments that all rely on different forms of mimicry of human life or intelligence. Many such approaches have been to some extent successful. However, we want to argue that there are ways to exploit aspects of life-likeness without deception. A life-like robot has advantages in communicating with humans, not because we believe it to be alive, but rather because we react instinctively to certain aspects of life-like behavior as this can make a robot easier to understand and allows us to better predict its actions. Although there may be reasons for trying to design robots that look exactly like humans for specific research purposes, we argue that it is subtle behavioral cues that are important for understandable robots rather than life-likeness in itself. To this end, we are developing a humanoid robot that will be able to show human-like movements while still looking decidedly robotic, thus exploiting the our ability to understand the behaviors of other people based on their movements. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Frontiers in Human Dynamics
volume
4
article number
703879
pages
7 pages
publisher
Frontiers Media S. A.
external identifiers
  • scopus:85160821455
ISSN
2673-2726
DOI
10.3389/fhumd.2022.703879
project
Ethics for autonomous systems/AI
Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program – Humanities and Society
Lund University AI Research
Non-Verbal Signals of Trust and Group Identification in Humans and Robots
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
b92f700e-410b-4f3f-9214-c30fc79556f3
date added to LUP
2022-06-12 11:43:36
date last changed
2024-01-02 04:02:55
@article{b92f700e-410b-4f3f-9214-c30fc79556f3,
  abstract     = {{Life-likeness is a property that can be used both to deceive people that a robot is more intelligent than it is or to facilitate the natural communication with humans. Over the years, different criteria have guided the design of intelligent systems, ranging from attempts to produce human-like language to trying to make a robot look like an actual human. We outline some relevant historical developments that all rely on different forms of mimicry of human life or intelligence. Many such approaches have been to some extent successful. However, we want to argue that there are ways to exploit aspects of life-likeness without deception. A life-like robot has advantages in communicating with humans, not because we believe it to be alive, but rather because we react instinctively to certain aspects of life-like behavior as this can make a robot easier to understand and allows us to better predict its actions. Although there may be reasons for trying to design robots that look exactly like humans for specific research purposes, we argue that it is subtle behavioral cues that are important for understandable robots rather than life-likeness in itself. To this end, we are developing a humanoid robot that will be able to show human-like movements while still looking decidedly robotic, thus exploiting the our ability to understand the behaviors of other people based on their movements.}},
  author       = {{Balkenius, Christian and Johansson, Birger}},
  issn         = {{2673-2726}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{02}},
  pages        = {{1--7}},
  publisher    = {{Frontiers Media S. A.}},
  series       = {{Frontiers in Human Dynamics}},
  title        = {{Almost Alive : Robots and Androids}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fhumd.2022.703879}},
  doi          = {{10.3389/fhumd.2022.703879}},
  volume       = {{4}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}