11,653 research outputs found
Explorations in engagement for humans and robots
This paper explores the concept of engagement, the process by which
individuals in an interaction start, maintain and end their perceived
connection to one another. The paper reports on one aspect of engagement among
human interactors--the effect of tracking faces during an interaction. It also
describes the architecture of a robot that can participate in conversational,
collaborative interactions with engagement gestures. Finally, the paper reports
on findings of experiments with human participants who interacted with a robot
when it either performed or did not perform engagement gestures. Results of the
human-robot studies indicate that people become engaged with robots: they
direct their attention to the robot more often in interactions where engagement
gestures are present, and they find interactions more appropriate when
engagement gestures are present than when they are not.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, 3 table
The social brain: allowing humans to boldly go where no other species has been
The biological basis of complex human social interaction and communication has been illuminated
through a coming together of various methods and disciplines. Among these are comparative studies
of other species, studies of disorders of social cognition and developmental psychology. The use of neuroimaging
and computational models has given weight to speculations about the evolution of social
behaviour and culture in human societies. We highlight some networks of the social brain relevant to
two-person interactions and consider the social signals between interacting partners that activate
these networks.Wemake a case for distinguishing between signals that automatically trigger interaction
and cooperation and ostensive signals that are used deliberately.We suggest that this ostensive signalling
is needed for âclosing the loopâ in two-person interactions, where the partners each know that they have
the intention to communicate. The use of deliberate social signals can serve to increase reputation and
trust and facilitates teaching. This is likely to be a critical factor in the steep cultural ascent ofmankind
Emerging Linguistic Functions in Early Infancy
This paper presents results from experimental
studies on early language acquisition in infants and
attempts to interpret the experimental results within
the framework of the Ecological Theory of
Language Acquisition (ETLA) recently proposed
by (Lacerda et al., 2004a). From this perspective,
the infantâs first steps in the acquisition of the
ambient language are seen as a consequence of the
infantâs general capacity to represent sensory input
and the infantâs interaction with other actors in its
immediate ecological environment. On the basis of
available experimental evidence, it will be argued
that ETLA offers a productive alternative to
traditional descriptive views of the language
acquisition process by presenting an operative
model of how early linguistic function may emerge
through interaction
Flexibly Instructable Agents
This paper presents an approach to learning from situated, interactive
tutorial instruction within an ongoing agent. Tutorial instruction is a
flexible (and thus powerful) paradigm for teaching tasks because it allows an
instructor to communicate whatever types of knowledge an agent might need in
whatever situations might arise. To support this flexibility, however, the
agent must be able to learn multiple kinds of knowledge from a broad range of
instructional interactions. Our approach, called situated explanation, achieves
such learning through a combination of analytic and inductive techniques. It
combines a form of explanation-based learning that is situated for each
instruction with a full suite of contextually guided responses to incomplete
explanations. The approach is implemented in an agent called Instructo-Soar
that learns hierarchies of new tasks and other domain knowledge from
interactive natural language instructions. Instructo-Soar meets three key
requirements of flexible instructability that distinguish it from previous
systems: (1) it can take known or unknown commands at any instruction point;
(2) it can handle instructions that apply to either its current situation or to
a hypothetical situation specified in language (as in, for instance,
conditional instructions); and (3) it can learn, from instructions, each class
of knowledge it uses to perform tasks.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file
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Post-automation: report from an international workshop
The purpose of this report is to share lessons from an international research workshop dedicated to post- automation. Twenty-seven researchers from eleven different countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, met at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University on 11-13 September 2019, where we discussed empirical research papers and explored post-automation in group activities. We write this report primarily for researchers, but also for activists and policy advisors looking for more imaginative approaches to governing technology, work and sustainability in society, compared to those dominant agendas adapting automatically to the interests behind automation.
The report is structured as follows. Section two introduces the workshop topic and papers presented, and which leads into two related areas that became a focus for discussion. First, some challenges in the foundations
of automation theory (section three). And second, post-automation as a more constructive proposition to the challenges of automation, and that is happening right now (section four). Section five summarises some key points arising from the workshop, based on empirical observations from the margins of digital technology development, and that give both a flavour of the workshop and help elaborate the post-automation proposition. Some analytical and strategic themes are discussed in section six. We conclude in section seven with proposals for a post-automation agenda
A neo-aristotelian perspective on the need for artificial moral agents (AMAs)
We examine Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) critique of the need for Artifcial Moral Agents
(AMAs) and its rebuttal by Formosa and Ryan (JAMA 10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) set against a neo-Aristotelian
ethical background. Neither Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) essay nor Formosa and Ryanâs (JAMA
10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) is explicitly framed within the teachings of a specifc ethical school. The former
appeals to the lack of âboth empirical and intuitive supportâ (Van Wynsberghe and Robbins 2019, p. 721) for AMAs, and
the latter opts for âargumentative breadth over depthâ, meaning to provide âthe essential groundwork for making an all
things considered judgment regarding the moral case for building AMAsâ (Formosa and Ryan 2019, pp. 1â2). Although
this strategy may beneft their acceptability, it may also detract from their ethical rootedness, coherence, and persuasiveness, characteristics often associated with consolidated ethical traditions. Neo-Aristotelian ethics, backed by a distinctive
philosophical anthropology and worldview, is summoned to fll this gap as a standard to test these two opposing claims. It
provides a substantive account of moral agency through the theory of voluntary action; it explains how voluntary action is
tied to intelligent and autonomous human life; and it distinguishes machine operations from voluntary actions through the
categories of poiesis and praxis respectively. This standpoint reveals that while Van Wynsberghe and Robbins may be right
in rejecting the need for AMAs, there are deeper, more fundamental reasons. In addition, despite disagreeing with Formosa
and Ryanâs defense of AMAs, their call for a more nuanced and context-dependent approach, similar to neo-Aristotelian
practical wisdom, becomes expedient
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