19,207 research outputs found
Assistive robotics: research challenges and ethics education initiatives
Assistive robotics is a fast growing field aimed at helping healthcarers in hospitals, rehabilitation centers and nursery homes, as well as empowering people with reduced mobility at home, so that they can autonomously fulfill their daily living activities. The need to function in dynamic human-centered environments poses new research challenges: robotic assistants need to have friendly interfaces, be highly adaptable and customizable, very compliant and intrinsically safe to people, as well as able to handle deformable materials.
Besides technical challenges, assistive robotics raises also ethical defies, which have led to the emergence of a new discipline: Roboethics. Several institutions are developing regulations and standards, and many ethics education initiatives include contents on human-robot interaction and human dignity in assistive situations.
In this paper, the state of the art in assistive robotics is briefly reviewed, and educational materials from a university course on Ethics in Social Robotics and AI focusing on the assistive context are presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Building an Argument for the Use of Science Fiction in HCI Education
Science fiction literature, comics, cartoons and, in particular, audio-visual
materials, such as science fiction movies and shows, can be a valuable addition
in Human-computer interaction (HCI) Education. In this paper, we present an
overview of research relative to future directions in HCI Education, distinct
crossings of science fiction in HCI and Computer Science teaching and the
Framework for 21st Century Learning. Next, we provide examples where science
fiction can add to the future of HCI Education. In particular, we argue herein
first that science fiction, as tangible and intangible cultural artifact, can
serve as a trigger for creativity and innovation and thus, support us in
exploring the design space. Second, science fiction, as a means to analyze
yet-to-come HCI technologies, can assist us in developing an open-minded and
reflective dialogue about technological futures, thus creating a singular base
for critical thinking and problem solving. Provided that one is cognizant of
its potential and limitations, we reason that science fiction can be a
meaningful extension of selected aspects of HCI curricula and research.Comment: 6 pages, 1 table, IHSI 2019 accepted submissio
Structure learning of graphical models for task-oriented robot grasping
In the collective imaginaries a robot is a human like machine as any androids in science fiction. However the type of robots that you will encounter most frequently are machinery that do work that is too dangerous, boring or onerous. Most of the robots in the world are of this type. They can be found in auto, medical, manufacturing and space industries.
Therefore a robot is a system that contains sensors, control systems, manipulators, power supplies and software all working together to perform a task.
The development and use of such a system is an active area of research and one of the main problems is the development of interaction skills with the surrounding environment, which include the ability to grasp objects. To perform this task the robot needs to sense the environment and acquire the object informations, physical attributes that may influence a grasp. Humans can solve this grasping problem easily due to their past experiences, that is why many researchers are approaching it from a machine learning perspective finding grasp of an object using information of already known objects. But humans can select the best grasp amongst a vast repertoire not only considering the physical attributes of the object to grasp but even to obtain a certain effect.
This is why in our case the study in the area of robot manipulation is focused on grasping and integrating symbolic tasks with data gained through sensors.
The learning model is based on Bayesian Network to encode the statistical dependencies between the data collected by the sensors and the symbolic task. This data representation has several advantages. It allows to take into account the uncertainty of the real world, allowing to deal with sensor noise, encodes notion of causality and provides an unified network for learning.
Since the network is actually implemented and based on the human expert knowledge, it is very interesting to implement an automated method to learn the structure as in the future more tasks and object features can be introduced and a complex network design based only on human expert knowledge can become unreliable.
Since structure learning algorithms presents some weaknesses, the goal of this thesis is to analyze real data used in the network modeled by the human expert, implement a feasible structure learning approach and compare the results with the network designed by the expert in order to possibly enhance it
Ambiguous Bodies, Biopower and the Ideologies of Science Fiction
Contemporary Hollywood film narrates the fear of monstrous science; attending to the
modulations of medicine, capital and the body. The filmic body is employed to illustrate the
power of the new biotechnologies to create and sustain life and the new sets of social relations
which are a consequence of the marriage of capital and medicine. In the Hollywood film,
persons who do not fit the ideal healthy persona have a moral duty to pursue repair and
transformation. Constructed as inherently lacking, the unhealthy body becomes a repository
for social anxieties about control and vulnerability, vis-à-vis the enormous and exponentially
expanding science and technology fields. Hierarchies of embodiment are played out on the Big
Screen as imperfect bodies are excluded from public life, power and status and urged to strive
for “optimization”. Late modern societies present the possibility of new technologies which
have the potential to radicalize bodies. However, these potential modulations are ultimately
derived from a set of ideologies around the body and the power of the individual to enact an
individualized solution. Contemporary narratives circulate around ownership of capital and
the price of “repair.” This marriage of science and capital in popular narratives may be
indicative of concerns for our future, as the power to make and repair life seems to rest
increasingly in the hands of an elite
Past Visions of Artificial Futures: One Hundred and Fifty Years under the Spectre of Evolving Machines
The influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Life (ALife)
technologies upon society, and their potential to fundamentally shape the
future evolution of humankind, are topics very much at the forefront of current
scientific, governmental and public debate. While these might seem like very
modern concerns, they have a long history that is often disregarded in
contemporary discourse. Insofar as current debates do acknowledge the history
of these ideas, they rarely look back further than the origin of the modern
digital computer age in the 1940s-50s. In this paper we explore the earlier
history of these concepts. We focus in particular on the idea of
self-reproducing and evolving machines, and potential implications for our own
species. We show that discussion of these topics arose in the 1860s, within a
decade of the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species, and attracted
increasing interest from scientists, novelists and the general public in the
early 1900s. After introducing the relevant work from this period, we
categorise the various visions presented by these authors of the future
implications of evolving machines for humanity. We suggest that current debates
on the co-evolution of society and technology can be enriched by a proper
appreciation of the long history of the ideas involved.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2018
(ALIFE 2018), MIT Pres
Exploring the Referral and Usage of Science Fiction in HCI Literature
Research on science fiction (sci-fi) in scientific publications has indicated
the usage of sci-fi stories, movies or shows to inspire novel Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI) research. Yet no studies have analysed sci-fi in a top-ranked
computer science conference at present. For that reason, we examine the CHI
main track for the presence and nature of sci-fi referrals in relationship to
HCI research. We search for six sci-fi terms in a dataset of 5812 CHI main
proceedings and code the context of 175 sci-fi referrals in 83 papers indexed
in the CHI main track. In our results, we categorize these papers into five
contemporary HCI research themes wherein sci-fi and HCI interconnect: 1)
Theoretical Design Research; 2) New Interactions; 3) Human-Body Modification or
Extension; 4) Human-Robot Interaction and Artificial Intelligence; and 5)
Visions of Computing and HCI. In conclusion, we discuss results and
implications located in the promising arena of sci-fi and HCI research.Comment: v1: 20 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, HCI International 2018 accepted
submission v2: 20 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, added link/doi for Springer
proceedin
Asimov's Coming Back
Ever since the word ‘ROBOT’ first appeared in a science\ud
fiction in 1921, scientists and engineers have been trying\ud
different ways to create it. Present technologies in\ud
mechanical and electrical engineering makes it possible\ud
to have robots in such places as industrial manufacturing\ud
and assembling lines. Although they are\ud
essentially robotic arms or similarly driven by electrical\ud
power and signal control, they could be treated the\ud
primitive pioneers in application. Researches in the\ud
laboratories go much further. Interdisciplines are\ud
directing the evolution of more advanced robots. Among these are artificial\ud
intelligence, computational neuroscience, mathematics and robotics. These disciplines\ud
come closer as more complex problems emerge.\ud
From a robot’s point of view, three basic abilities are needed. They are thinking\ud
and memory, sensory perceptions, control and behaving. These are capabilities we\ud
human beings have to adapt ourselves to the environment. Although\ud
researches on robots, especially on intelligent thinking, progress slowly, a revolution\ud
for biological inspired robotics is spreading out in the laboratories all over the world
AI in space: Past, present, and possible futures
While artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly present in recent space applications, new missions being planned will require even more incorporation of AI techniques. In this paper, we survey some of the progress made to date in implementing such programs, some current directions and issues, and speculate about the future of AI in space scenarios. We also provide examples of how thinkers from the realm of science fiction have envisioned AI's role in various aspects of space exploration
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