Is morality the last frontier for machines?

This paper examines some ethical and cognitive aspects of machines making moral decisions in difficult situations. We compare the situations when humans have to make tough moral choices with those in which machines make such decisions. We argue that in situations where machines make tough moral choices, it is important to produce justification for those decisions that are psychologically compelling and acceptable by peopl

A cognitive perspective on norms

Norms are ideals that serve as guiding beacon in many human activities. They are considered to transcend accepted social and cultural practices, and reflect some universal, moral principles. In this chapter, we will show that norms are cognitive constructs by considering several examples in the domains of language, art and aesthetics, law, science and mathematics. We will argue that, yes, norms are ideals that we posit, so in this respect they go beyond current social and cultural values. However, norms are posited using cognitive mechanisms and are based on our existing knowledge and wisdom. In this sense, norms are what we, as an individual or as a society, strive for, but they show the horizon effect in that they recede and transform as we progress towards them, and sometimes this transformation can be radical

Is a humorous robot more trustworthy?

As more and more social robots are being used for collaborative activities with humans, it is crucial to investigate mechanisms to facilitate trust in the human-robot interaction. One such mechanism is humour: it has been shown to increase creativity and productivity in human-human interaction, which has an indirect influence on trust. In this study, we investigate if humour can increase trust in human-robot interaction. We conducted a between-subjects experiment with 40 participants to see if the participants are more likely to accept the robot's suggestion in the Three-card Monte game, as a trust check task. Though we were unable to find a significant effect of humour, we discuss the effect of possible confounding variables, and also report some interesting qualitative observations from our study: for instance, the participants interacted effectively with the robot as a team member, regardless of the humour or no-humour condition.Comment: ICSR 202

An approach to task representation based on object features and affordances

Multi-purpose service robots must execute their tasks reliably in different situations, as well as learn from humans and explain their plans to them. We address these issues by introducing a knowledge representation scheme to facilitate skill generalization and explainability. This scheme allows representing knowledge of the robot’s understanding of a scene and performed task. We also present techniques for extracting this knowledge from raw data. Such knowledge representation and extraction methods have not been explored adequately in previous research. Our approach does not require any prior knowledge or 3D models of the objects involved. Moreover, the representation scheme is easy to understand for humans. The system is modular so that new recognition or reasoning routines can be added without changing the basic architecture. We developed a computer vision system and a task reasoning module that works with our knowledge representation. The efficacy of our approach is demonstrated with two different tasks: hanging items on pegs and stacking one item on another. A formalization of our knowledge representation scheme is presented, showing how the system is capable of learning from a few demonstrations

The influence of verticality metaphor on moral judgment and intuition

Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of conceptual metaphor predicts that the notion of verticality is often used as a basis for understanding concepts: so, for example, physically higher locations are associated with morally good, and lower locations are associated with immorality. As the moral dimension plays a crucial role when we judge other people, one would expect that verticality metaphor is also connected with moral evaluation of other people. We present here two experiments to explore this issue. Results of the first experiment suggest that the judgment of a morally ambivalent behaviour description is more favourable when presented at the top of the page in comparison to presenting it at the bottom of the page. The second experiment shows that participants are more willing to stop to talk to a volunteer asking for donation for charity after they ride up the escalator rather than after riding down. These results together lead to the conclusion that activation of verticality metaphor influences moral judgment, both when it comes to deliberate and conscious evaluation (first experiment), and also when the decision is based on the first impression, intuition and automatic reaction (second experiment)

A prototype to study cognitive and aesthetic aspects of mixed reality technologies

Mixed reality systems integrate virtual reality with real-world perception and cognition to offer enhanced interaction possibilities with the environment. Our aim is to demonstrate that mixed reality technologies strongly affect our aesthetic sense and mental models. So, in designing such technologies, we need to incorporate perspectives from different disciplines. We present different approaches and implementations of cognitive enhancement and cognitive technologies, consider some practical applications of mixed reality systems and discuss how they impact the user perception, body image and aesthetic sense

On the use of metaphors in designing educational interfaces

Metaphors are present in a wide range of everyday activities. They usually work by understanding or explaining complex subjects by terms from more familiar domains. Metaphors in everyday context are often used unconsciously, as their sources are basic entities and perceptual experiences. They can, however, be used deliberately in educational discourse to explain difficult concepts and introduce new ideas in an intelligible manner. This approach falls under constructivism, which claims that an effective learning strategy is to scaffold on the previous knowledge and conceptual representations. However, there are some limitations of introducing a new concept indirectly via a metaphor. We consider these issues here in the domains of physics education, human-computer interfaces and human-robot interactions. We argue that metaphors are most effective for novices, when one needs to grasp a general idea about a concept and understand its functions without a detailed analysis. In this respect, metaphor can be a powerful tool for bridging gaps in understanding between familiar terms and abstract ideas that are yet to be learned