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Androids
Have Higher Calling than Mechanical Cousins, IU
expert says
(posted June
1, 2007)
 INDIANAPOLIS
-- Consider the ordinary, garden-variety service
robot -- a pretty decent pinch-hitter to do the
dirty, drab and dangerous jobs most of us try to
avoid. Think ‘‘Tin Man’‘ but without heart
and ability to communicate and reason.
But give the robot a
realistic human face and body, carefully program it
to mimic our mannerisms and traits, and you'll
likely have a creature that interacts more closely
with us -- one that can even help us better
understand our own behavior. So says Karl F.
MacDorman, an android and robotics science expert at
the Indiana University School of Informatic.
'‘Human-looking
robots have a greater potential for social
interaction,’‘ MacDorman said. ‘‘They are
the ultimate human communications interface. They
can serve as companions, entertainers,
rehabilitation therapists, realistic medical
training dummies and teachers for autistic
children.’‘
MacDorman, associate
professor at Indiana University-Purdue University
Indianapolis, will share his expertise at the
International Robots and Vision Conference in
Chicago, June 11-14. He will join scientists from 26
nations presenting at a session highlighting recent
trends and technology in service robots.
In the United States
robots are still viewed mainly as tools for
performing specific tasks, even when they act
autonomously. They can be programmed for tasks such
as delivering messages, medications and food in
hospitals, cleaning public areas and general
surveillance, MacDorman said.
‘‘However, using
an android seems to have little if any advantage
over special-purpose robots in performing these
kinds of jobs,’‘ he said. ‘‘A less
expensive, wheeled robot can courier or vacuum
faster than an android and with less power
consumption.’‘
MacDorman said that
recent studies indicate androids are better able to
elicit human norms of interaction than less
humanlike robots or animated characters. However,
there's a heightened sensitivity to defects in near
humanlike forms -- an ‘‘uncanny valley’‘ in
what is otherwise a positive relationship between
human likeness and familiarity.
The so-called uncanny
valley phenomenon -- which MacDorman and many other
android scientists study -- suggests that the more
realistic and humanlike a robot appears, the more
positively a human will react to it but only to a
certain point where the resemblance actually causes
a sense of repulsion or eeriness.
‘‘But androids
are now in a better position to escape the uncanny
valley,’‘ MacDorman said. ‘‘I'm interested
in finding out the principles of good android design
that take us out of the valley, and those
discoveries should also shed more light on the
psychology and neuroscience of human
perception.’‘
 The
Xi'an Superman android, which is scheduled for
exhibition in Chicago, is one example of recent
advances in android realism. Its physical appearance
closely mimics that of its creator, Zou Ren-Ti,
founder of Xian Superman Sculpture Research Council
in China.
While there may be
many benefits to building humanlike robots, there
are ethical concerns in creating devices that elicit
all-too-human traits and feelings -- love,
nurturance and parental protection.
‘‘They may make
us feel good, but feed our narcissism and distract
us from family and friends, while failing to
understand us in a meaningful way,’‘ said
MacDorman. ‘‘Androids could also sway our moral
decision-making without legal or moral
accountability. Such concerns will need to be worked
out as androids come to play a greater role in
society.’‘
Joining MacDorman in
the panel discussion on service robots are Jong-Oh
Park, Chonham National University in South Korea;
Hirohisa Hirukawa, National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology in Japan; Martin
Haegele, Fraunhofer Institute in Germany; and Henrik
Christensen, Georgia Tech University.
More information
about MacDorman's android science research is at http://www.macdorman.com.
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