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One-on-One
But
when Veloso's soccer-playing robots win their first game against
a team of humans, will they be good sports? Brian Scassellati,
an assistant professor of Computer Science at Yale University,
wants his robots to pick up on human emotions and respond
accordingly. He takes a more biological approach to his research,
building on theories and models usually applied to human learning
and development.
But when soccer-playing robots win their first game
against a team of humans, will they be good sports?
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"We
have some ideas about how children learn to manipulate objects,
to reach out and grab an object or learn that when an object
passes out of sight that it still continues to exist," says
Scassellati. "So, we try to take these models from developmental
psychology and we try to build that model."
Robots
modeled on natural processes, says Scassellati, would make
human-machine interactions much more intuitive and comfortable
for the human. Moreover, it would enable the robot to learn
through social interactions.
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Alan
with Kismet, an "emotional" robot at the MIT media labs
who learns from social interactions with its programmers.
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"We
work quite a bit with the modeling of social skills," says
Scassellati. "We want to build robots that realize what's
happening when you make eye contact with them and we want
them to be able to respond to social cues."
These
socially savvy robots could in turn serve as good instructors.
Scassellati's lab is working on a robot that can recognize
and respond to social skills - or the lack thereof - to help
diagnose autism in children, a spectrum of developmental disorders
that robs children of their ability to relate to others.
A
robot with social skills could provide a more objective baseline
than even the most skilled human clinician, who may unwittingly
bring slightly different emotions to each interaction with
the child in question. The robot, by contrast, could be set
to interact at precisely the same social level every time.
These savvy robots could recognize and respond to social
skills, and help diagnose autism in children.
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"One
of the robots we're building right now is actually the same
dimensions as the average two-year-old," says Scassellati.
"We'll be able to see a particular child today, and in two
months, and in three months, and compare performance over
that time period with an objective observer."
Once
a child has been diagnosed as autistic, the same robot could
then be used as a therapeutic tool. Some research suggests
repeated social interactions can help autistic children break
out of the strange shell in which the disorder envelops them.
But the therapy must be finely calibrated for each individual
child and the sessions can require super-human patience. So
why not use a non-human therapist?
"Initially,
when we start off with a child," says Scassellati, "the robot
would do only very simple forms of social interaction, maybe
just eye contact. Then as the child becomes more proficient
with that, we'd add complexity to each interaction."
Scassellati
envisions these social robots breaking out of the roles we
traditionally assign to robots - that is, performing tasks
either too dangerous or boring for people.
"More
and more, robotic systems will become part of our daily lives,"
he predicts. "Toys, or pets, or different devices are having
personalities and trying to predict what it is that you want.
Things are just getting smarter all the time." 
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